Synopses & Reviews
Michael Moran is an embittered Irish Republican who detests the "small-minded gangsters" who now run the country for whose independence he fought. Now a soldier without a battle, he transfers his brutality to his own family. He is hard on his daughters: Maggie, a late bloomer who wants to study nursing; Sheila, an assertive spirit whose chance at a university scholarship is thwarted by Moran; and the hardworking Mona, who settles for the civil-service career Moran chose for her. But it is Moran's sons the errant Luke and the youngest, Michael who bear the brunt of his malevolence as his struggle with the past comes to an unimagined end.
Review
"A wonderful writer...his spare but luminous prose evokes a severly repressed life and the aching passion that lies beneath its stony surface." Chicago Tribune
Review
"McGahern's telling is masterful. With clarity and lyrical language, he soothes and sears the reader." Detroit Free Press
Review
"The novelist's art at its finest....Beats to the rhythm of the world and of life itself." The New York Review of Books
Review
"McGahern (The Dark; The Pornographer) has crafted a wise and tender novel whose brooding hero seems emblematic of an Ireland that drives away its sons and daughters." Publishers Weekly
Review
"A most satisfying addition to a very distinguished body of work." Library Journal
Synopsis
Michael Moran is an old Republican whose life was transformed by his days of glory as a guerilla fighter in the War of Independence. Now much older, he is still fighting with a second wife, his daughters, his sons, his old friends, even with himself in a poignant struggle in which fear is tempered by love.
Synopsis
Michael Moran is an old Irish Republican whose life was forever transformed by his days of glory as a guerrilla leader in the Irish War of Independence. Moran is till fighting—with his family, his friends, and even himself—in this haunting testimony to the enduring qualities of the human spirit.
About the Author
John McGahern was born in Dublin and brought up in the west of Ireland. He is the author of three collections of short stories and six novels, including Amongst Women, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Reading Group Guide
1. At the end of his life, why has Moran become afraid of his daughters?
2. What does Monaghan Day mean for Moran? For his daughters?
3. What ends the friendship between Moran and McQuaid?
4. Why is Rose so eager to marry a man whom the rest of the town has suspicions about?
5. What keeps Michael from running away from home permanently like his brother Luke?
6. What is the significance of the nightly ritual of saying the rosary, especially on nights when Moran's temper explodes?
7. How is Moran able to manipulate his daughters? How, for instance, does he convince Sheila not to go to university?
8. In what sense is London a counterpart in the novel to Dublin and to Great Meadow?
9. Why does Luke agree to attend his sister's wedding?
10. What does Luke mean when he says, "I kept my promise: I did not exist today" (p. 155)?
11. What is the significance of the fact that Moran is unrecognized and ignored when he goes to the bank manager to get financial advice at the end of the novel?
12. The daughters seem to gain strength upon their father's death. Why is this?