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But this compelling autobiography is far more than a journey over old ground: in ordering and expanding those elements he has used in his fiction, McGahern has finally given us a vivid, comprehensive map of his unique terrain. It can be read and enjoyed in its own right but there is an additional pleasure in seeing the scattered pieces of his fiction assembling themselves into a single coherent shape.
McGahern’s relationship with his brutal father dominates the book but this is no howl of rage or score-settling: the son examines his father as far as he is able (and there is a pleasure for the reader in the precision of that examination) but by the end seems to accept there is only so much he can understand. And despite the strong shadow his father casts, joy is interwoven throughout the account, in his relationship with his mother, in his capacity for delight in the familiar landscape (even when carrying out the many tasks imposed on him by his father) and in the moments of stolen solitariness in the boat at Oakport which prefigure his becoming a writer.
Shorn of sentimentality or pseudo-poeticism, John McGahern’s Memoir feels like the culmination of his writing life. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
He once wrote the writer's task was "to look after his sentences, nothing more". And so it is. But his sentences were always lost in the reality he touched - often painful, sometimes beautiful. He was unfailingly brave.
Memoir maybe confirms things we already knew, or things we once glimpsed, in his life and in ours, for sure in mine. It's an account of his childhood, the non-fictional version of his fiction - as if these terms made any sense with regard to his work.
As it turns out, he was tidying up before he would pass. And now he's gone.
Thank you, John McGahern, for everything.
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