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Mary Lavin.
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Like many other twentieth-century writers who think of their work as developing organically rather than in response to artificially imposed distinctions of genre, Mary Lavin has produced fiction that ...
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Critical Essay by V. S. Pritchett
[Mary Lavin writes] most of the time about people who appear to be living, at first, in a state of inertia, in the lethargy of country life: then we notice that they ...
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Critical Essay by Thomas J. Murray
Lavin's fiction cannot be placed alongside the best from other cultures, but it can be seen, at full maturity in a few stories, as a quietly respectable contr...
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Critical Essay by Richard F. Peterson
In the three collections of stories published in the 1940s [Tales From Bective Bridge, The Long Ago and Other Stories, The Becker Wives and Other Stories], Mary L...
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Critical Essay by Catherine A. Murphy
Frequently in Mary Lavin's stories the normal world view of an individual is suddenly transfigured by the awareness of an extended dimension of reality. Th...
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In the following essay, Burnham examines Lavin's stories published in The Dublin Magazine, including “Miss Holland,” “A Fable,” “Brigid,” and “A...
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In the following essay, Shumaker examines the use of sacrificial women characters in the short fiction of Lavin and Edna O'Brien.
Edna O'Brien's “A Scandalous Woman”...
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In the following essay, Neary asserts that “The Becker Wives” provides valuable inside into the “Irish quest for identity.”
“What ish my nation?” is a questio...
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In the following essay, Dunleavy investigates the origins and development of Lavin's short story “A Memory.”
Now in her early sixties with many awards behind her, including two Gu...
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In the following essay, Peterson elucidates the influence of Katherine Mansfield's short stories on Lavin's short fiction.
Katherine Mansfield wrote in her journal that honesty “i...
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In the following essay, Murphy discusses Lavin's use of “intuitive imagination” in her short fiction.
Frequently in Mary Lavin's stories the normal world view of an individ...
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In the following essay, Dunleavy traces the origins and development of Lavin's story “Happiness.”
Mysterious and fascinating to those who study the craft of fiction, the creative ...
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In the following essay, Koenig compares Lavin's novels The House in Clewe Street and Mary O'Grady to Lavin's short stories contending that parts of the novels could easily succeed...
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In the following essay, Scott considers Lavin's fascination with the human mind, particularly the female mind, as evinced in her short fiction.
In general treatments of Irish fiction and in art...
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In the following essay, Mahlke discusses Lavin's brief foray into stories with political themes, focusing on “The Patriot Son” and “The Face of Hate.”
Critics began ...
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In the following excerpt, Dunleavy traces Lavin's literary development and evaluates her contributions to the Irish short story.
By the end of World War II, the Irish short story had become an ...
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[In the following obituary, Clarity provides an overview of her life and career and comments on the style and major themes of her fiction.]
Mary Lavin, whose short stories and novels about the conflic...
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[In the obituary below, the critic comments on Lavin's literary career.]
Mary Lavin, who depicted the narrow subtleties of Irish small town life in short stories and novels, has died. She was 8...
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[In the essay below, Hawthorne focuses on language and meaning in Lavin's story "Happiness," arguing that the story suggests an incongruence between language and meaning.]
In the ...
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[In the following excerpt, Shumaker focuses on the protagonists from Lavin's stories "A Nun's Mother" and "Sarah" and argues that the "martyrdoms...
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[In the essay below, Hogan reflects on Lavin's works and concludes that the overall mood of her stories and novels is agnostic.]
A fitting introduction to the work of Mary Lavin might be an emb...
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[In the following review of A Family Likeness, Brown comments on Lavin's themes and style.]
There is something rather un-Irish about Mary Lavin's prose: it doesn't sing or soar or...
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[In the review below, Brown comments favorably on Lavin's talents as a short-story writer.]
Mary Lavin is a superb storyteller. She has the capacity to take an apparently ordinary, even banal, ...
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[In the following review, Peterson remarks on the themes of Lavin's stories and praises them as "remarkably insightful and intimate."]
With the publication of A Family Likeness an...
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