John McGahern

Amongst Women

Michael, a writer of pornographic fiction, creates an ideal world of sex through his two stock athletes, Colonel Grimshaw and Mavis Carmichael, while he bungles every phase of his entanglement with an older woman who has the misfortune to fall in love with him. But his insensitivity to this love is in direct contrast to the tenderness with which he attempts to make his aunt's slow death in hospital tolerable, while his employer, Maloney, failed poet and comic king of pornographers, comes gradually to preside over this broken world. Everywhere in this rich novel is the drama of opposites, but, above all, sex and death are never far from each other. 'A marvellous novel, deep, moving, rich and resonant, about love, lust, life and death.' Sunday Express 'A novel that succeeds beautifully in doing what it sets out to do; to record and illuminate varieties of disenchantment.' Times Literary Supplement 'An admirable book, one of the finest I have read for a long time ... I cannot recommend Mr McGahern too strongly.' Sunday Telegraph

The Pornographer

Anne Enright

The Pornographer is the story of a writer down on his luck, not a Dubliner but a resident of Dublin penning far from erotic tales to make ends meet. These tales—revolving around the “delicious, unending revel” of Colonel Grimshaw and the typist Mavis Carmichael—form a mordant counterpoint to his own, much more complicated existence.

Thirty years old, befogged by alcohol, sensitive yet indifferent to all emotional weather, he meets the slightly older Josephine, a clever, cautiously optimistic magazine editor who soon confesses her love, and though the feeling isn’t mutual (as he makes painfully clear) the affair goes on; Josephine becomes pregnant; and, this being Ireland in the seventies, the piper must be paid.

Not cruel but callous, the pornographer reels through his days, paying regular visits to a beloved aunt from the country who now lies dying in Dublin, and to his publisher, a citified and cynical Polonius who advises him to “be careful not to let life in.” As the days turn into months, he begins to wonder what letting life in might look like. What would it mean, and where would it lead, to do right by others?

First published in 1979, John McGahern’s fourth novel is a character study of rare and unsparing insight. In rhythmic, lyrical prose, McGahern gives voice to the longing and self-loathing of a soul caught between a traditional world he believes he has rejected and a brave new world of advertised freedoms, sexual and otherwise, which offers no guarantee of love.

The dark

By the Lake

A landmark event: the collected stories of 'one of the greatest writers of our era' (Hilary Mantel) and 'the Irish novelist everyone should read' (Colm Tóibín). 'Wise and compelling ... Elegiac and graceful.' David Mitchell 'I have admired, even loved, John McGahern's work since his first novel .' Melvyn Bragg 'Gentle, lyrical, an amorist of language, a natural historian of the soul.' Irish Times 'Exquisite stories . . . Here is a Dublin of tatty dancehalls and uneasy courtships, of kisses in damp doorways and unfulfilled hungerings . . . Writing of extraordinary beauty.' Guardian

Collected Stories

One of the preeminent writers of our time, John McGahern has captivated readers with such poignant and heart-wrenching novels as Amongst Women and The Dark. In The Pornographer, Michael creates an ideal world of sex as a writer of pornographic fiction, while he bungles every phase of his entanglement with an older woman who has the misfortune to fall in love with him. But his insensitivity to this love is in direct contrast to the tenderness with which he attempts to make his aunt's slow death in a hospital tolerable. Everywhere in this rich novel is the drama of opposites, but above all, sex and death are never far from each other.

The Collected Stories

This is the story of John McGahern's childhood, his mother's death, his father's anger and violence, and how, through his discovery of books, his dream of becoming a writer began. At the heart of Memoir is a son's unembarrassed tribute to his mother. His memory of walks with her through the narrow lanes to the country schools where she taught and his happiness as she named for him the wild flowers on the bank remained conscious and unconscious presences for the rest of his life. A classic family story, told with exceptional restraint and tenderness, Memoir cannot fail to move all those who read it.

Memoir

Merc'hed war-dro

John McGahern did not spread himself thinly as a writer. Nearly all of his creative energy went into what was central for him: the great novels and stories that are now part of the canon of Irish and world literature. Yet he spoke out when he felt he had something worth saying and his non-fiction writings are of great interest to anyone who loves his work, and to all those interested in the recent history of Ireland. This book brings together all of McGahern's surviving essays, reviews and speeches. In them his canon of great writers - Tolstoy, Chekhov, James, Proust and Joyce - is cited many times, with deep and subtle appreciation. His discussions of Irish writers who influenced him are generous and brilliant - among them Michael McLaverty, Ernie O'Malley and Forrest Reid. His interventions on issues he felt strongly about - sectarianism, women's rights, the power of the church in Ireland - are lucid and far-sighted.

John McGahern

Books

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