In work that spans a half-century, James Hanley depicts situations and characters that reflect the complexity of modern life. His characters, many of whom are from the lower classes, face isolation and loneliness and seek love, acceptance, and...

Portland Press Herald (Maine) 12-01-2001 Portland Press Herald (Maine) Saturday, December 1, 2001 Edition: FINAL Section: Local & State Page: 7B ROCKLAND-- James J. Hanley, 80, died Nov. 28, 2001, at Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport after a brief illness. ...

Author James Hanley was a popular contributor to the regional novel. Born in Dublin, Hanley resettled in Liverpool, England, and promoted himself as a professional writer. His works focused on versions of consciousness that were previously not included from the range of subjects found...

James Hanley has been discovered and rediscovered for almost half a century. When his last book came out in 1973, Time magazine, calling him "one of the most consistently praised and least-known novelists in the English-speaking world," echoed its judgment of 20 years before: "If critics' raves paid their way in royalties … Hanley might well be one of the richest authors alive."… His earlier novels—more than 20—have been accorded a respectful ne...

[James Hanley] is an example of a novelist who has often aimed at a poetic type of fiction, restricting the social range of his work in his quest for intensity and significant form. He has undoubtedly pursued his art with dedication and integrity, and although he has elicited few displays of enthusiastic acclaim he has rightly won a great deal of respect for his artistic purity. Of his two books recently published, the reissued The Welsh Sonata (1954) is much more conspicuously poetic than the less ambitiou...

[The] idea of traveling—in the mind, over the mountains, or back in time—is central to ["The Welsh Sonata" and "A Kingdom"]. A day has its own elasticity—a morning "is beginning to stretch itself," and elsewhere, "to grow." The past of a man is never lost, but accumulates in the common memory: "Yesterday a man, today a tale."… The writing in both books is sometimes laconic, sometimes poetic, sometimes graphical...