John McGahern's fiction continually tempts critics to compare him with other novelists. An Irishman, he has undergone the inevitable comparison with Joyce, which few Irish novelists escape. One critic...
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John McGahern's significance to contemporary Irish literature was stated by Belfast novelist Glenn Patterson. When asked whether McGahern was his father, Patterson replied: "Yes. He is the father of t...
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In the following essay, Kennedy discusses the recurring themes in The Barracks, The Pornographer, The Leavetaking, and The Dark.
Well known and highly praised in Ireland and England, John McGahern...
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In the following review, Glaister discusses the emotional disappointments of the characters in The Collected Stories.
‘It's not hard to give the wrong signals in this world,’ says...
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In the following review, O'Rourke compares McGahern's The Collected Stories to the writings of D. H. Lawrence.
On the heels of William Trevor's Collected Stories Ireland sends us ...
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In the following review, the critic offers a positive assessment of The Collected Stories and compares the collection to Adam Thorpe's Ulverton.
“As they were controversial, they won him...
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In the following review, Grennan offers a positive assessment of The Collected Stories, complimenting the collection as “wonderfully rich.”
The voice that tells these splendid stories [i...
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In the following review, Storey explores the recurring themes in McGahern's body of work.
John McGahern is an Irish anomaly. The critical view says that, Joyce excepted, Irish writers of fictio...
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In the following review, Shannon offers a positive assessment of The Collected Stories.
When John McGahern's first novel, The Barracks, was published twenty years ago, a reviewer in the London ...
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In the following essay, Rogers discusses the role of domesticity in McGahern's prose.
The reliance—whether unconscious or not—of supposedly essential, self-reliant and self-define...
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In the following review, Barnacle offers a positive assessment of That They May Face the Rising Sun.
A couple of downshifters, Joe and Kate Ruttledge, have left their advertising jobs in London and mo...
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In the following review, Craig examines the parallels between McGahern's own life and the life of the protagonist in The Dark.
In “Oldfashioned,” perhaps the most highly-charged a...
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In the following essay, Lloyd discusses the influence rural Ireland has on McGahern's novels.
Although heralded in England and Ireland, John McGahern has gone virtually unnoticed in the United ...
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In the following essay, Quinn explores McGahern's use of melancholy and disappointment as recurring emotions in Nightlines and Getting Through.
Nightlines, the title of John McGahern's f...
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Pryce-Jones is an Austrian-born English novelist, biographer, and critic. In the following review, he discusses the bleak vision presented in the short fiction of Nightlines.
The Ireland of John McGah...
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Humphreys is an American novelist and essayist. In the following positive assessment of The Collected Stories, she provides an overview of McGahern's plots and characters.
One way to approach a...
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Banville is an Irish novelist and critic. Below, he discusses the defining characteristics of McGahern's short fiction.
As they were controversial, they won him a sort of fame: some thought th...
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Grennan is an Irish poet and critic. In the following review, he examines McGahern's fiction, terming it "essential reading for anyone interested in the interior life of modern Ireland, ...
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In the following review, Sampson traces the development of McGahern's short fiction.
Nightlines. Getting Through. High Ground. In retrospect, the titles of John McGahern's three volumes ...
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Below, Irwin explores the somber tone that permeates the short stories of Getting Through.
Most of these graceful, melancholy tales are set in Ireland. They deal in love, frustrated or misplaced, and ...
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Thomas Kilroy, playwright and novelist, provided the critic of Irish fiction with one of those clarifying and organising generalizations which illumine much that one has almost unconsciously accepted,...
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Broyard is an American essayist and critic. In the following mixed review, he provides a thematic analysis of the short stories in Getting Through.
In the first story in John McGahern's Getting...
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Craig is an Irish editor and critic. In the following review of High Ground, she surveys the characters and settings of McGahern 's short fiction and praises his realism and attention to detail...
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Conarroe is an American critic and educator. In the following favorable review of High Ground, he compares McGahern's short stories to the work of several highly accomplished modern authors.
J...
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Nightlines, the title of John McGahern's first collection of stories, (1970), promises a series of sombre narratives; Getting Through, the title of his second, (1978), connects communication wi...
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Below, Bradbury provides a thematic and stylistic overview of High Ground.
'High Ground' is the title story of the contemporary Irish writer John McGahern's third collectionȁ...
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Enright is an English man of letters who has spent most of his career abroad, teaching English literature at universities in Egypt, Japan, Berlin, Thailand, and Singapore, The author of critically res...
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John McGahern
