The most important of Donleavy's books, The Ginger Man contains the germ of his subsequent fictions. The main social concerns contrast worldliness, or middle-class respectability, with an anarchic or bohemian lifestyle.

A related issue poses American mendacity against Irish puritanism, both in turn contrasted with the hearty, affable laughter, drinking, and camaraderie of an Irish bohemian subclass. Clearly Donleavy condemns the strictures of the middle-class by representing its mendacity and its money-grubbing in the person of Sebastian Dangerfield's antagonist, landlord Egbert Skully (whose very name represents death.)

Skully cuts a ludicrous figure as he pursues the elusive Dangerfield by letter and eventually by making unexpected visits to the dwelling to which Dangerfield has moved. There is undeniable charm and humor in the clever ruses by which Dangerfield dodges Skully's persistent pursuit, leaving the money-grubbing landlord squinting into a window while his prey slips through an adjacent...