Critical Essay by Robert Taubman
Patrick Boyle uses Irish speech for exactitude, but English for effect—and all too often weakens the effect by exaggeration. 'Tap-tap-tap. Loud. Urgent....
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Critical Essay by David Dempsey
[Like Any Other Man] is a retelling, in a modern idiom, of the Samson and Delilah story; by taking a pagan theme that fits nicely into biblical sanction, the author ha...
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Critical Essay by Clancy Sigal
[In "Like Any Other Man,"] Patrick Boyle has written a gem of a novel, limpid, sad and conceived on the dark side of the Irish soul. The protagonist, Simp...
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Critical Essay by Martin Levin
Mainly, [Patrick Boyle's "At Night All Cats Are Grey"] is about drinking and dying, frequently intermingled. An old farmer gets falling-down-stoned...
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Critical Essay by David Dempsey
Working within the tradition of the modern Irish short story [in At Night All Cats Are Grey, Patrick Boyle] has freed himself of the gentle pathos that became Frank O&...
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Critical Essay by David Jenkins
Patrick Boyle's collection of short stories, A View from Calvary, presents a … traditional, delicate picture of Ireland. The title piece is a novella dea...
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Critical Essay by Nick Totton
Sometimes—in moments of bleakness—it seems as though the main teams of modern fiction writers are the Moralists and the Amoralists. If this is so, then Pat...
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Critical Essay by Derek Mahon
"In Adversity Be Ye Steadfast" is an entertaining if unkind caricature of a God-crazed Ulster Presbyterian farmer. The same story also appears in Mr. Boyle...
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Critical Essay by Robert Taubman
