SOURCE: Glaister, Lesley. “Seizing the Moment.” Spectator 269, no. 8571 (17 October 1992): 31–32.

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 a female character in one of John McGahern's collected stories. And in tale after tale [in The Collected Stories] this sentiment is dramatised: fathers misunderstand their sons, sons their fathers, and love affairs founder for lack of understanding.

It is a feature of a collection of short stories that a writer's preoccupations become obvious through repetition, and in most of these stories McGahern anatomises failure to connect in a variety of different relationships. The inability of fathers to express love for and need of their sons is a recurring theme, as are fractured love affairs. In several stories the main character is disappointed in love—a woman briefly held is lost...