Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Vivid map of author's unique terrain, 13 Dec 2005
If you are already familiar with the novels and short stories of John McGahern then not much of this will come as a surprise: the overbearing father; the mother’s death; the recurrent allure of Oakport. 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.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
an evocative and wistful delight, 1 April 2006
I have read that, sadly, John McGahern has recently died. I spent most of Boxing Day 05 reading this book, in virtually one shot as I could hardly bear to put it down, it was such a delight to read. It is beautifully written and tells the story of the author's Irish childhood and of how it placed him intellectually and emotionally as an adult in the larger world. It reads honestly, his love for his mother is intensely moving, the writing is rhythmical and measured. It made me cry, but my tears were unusual, because they were not drawn from easy sentimentality or from pity. I felt grateful to the author for sharing an emotionally lucid and truthful recollection of his early life which drew me into his family in his world, so far from my own.
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30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wise and compelling book, 13 Aug 2006
I read this beautiful, lyrical and tear-inducing autobiography in just two sittings. With no chapters or natural breaks, I just could not tear my eyes away from McGahern's seamless narrative.
Concentrating mainly on his childhood and adolescence growing up in rural Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s, it is very much a love letter to his adored mother, an accomplished school teacher, who died of breast cancer when he was eight years old.
It is also a heartfelt exploration of the ambiguous and complicated relationship with his father, a police sergeant, who ruled the family -- McGahern, the eldest child, had six younger siblings -- with a vicious tongue, temperamental mood swings and powerful fists.
At times the grief resonates off the page -- the account of his mother's illness, in which the family was moved out, furniture and all, to the police barracks in a different village while she lay upstairs in her sickbed seemed unbelievably cruel. During the several weeks in which she lay in her sickbed dying, her husband -- McGahern's father -- did not once visit her to offer comfort or companionship. This is something that stays with McGahern for the rest of his life: his inability to understand his father's lack of care or consideration for others close to him.
Despite this, Memoir is not a soppy book. And by no means is it anywhere near as cloying as Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes (which, by the way, I loved when I read it several years ago). The difference here is that McGahern is not seeking sympathy, but recounting honestly and truthfully what it was like to grow up with a widower father, who could not relate to those he supposedly loved and found it easier to lash out than bite his tongue. In many ways the book is about McGahern coming to terms with the fact that he will never understand his father.
What I found most interesting is how McGahern mined the events of his life for his fiction. I can't tell you how many times I felt the penny dropping as I read specific incidences: just the mere fact that his beloved mother had died of breast cancer explained much about the clear-eyed realistic portrayal of a woman grappling with illness in his debut novel The Barracks.
There are other bits -- the unspecified sexual abuse as he shares his father's bed, the desire to enter the priesthood and the rescue of his sister from a boss who molests her -- that appear in his second novel, The Dark. Similarly, his father's remarriage to a younger woman, the strength of his love for his sisters and the continual running away of his youngest brother, feature in his Booker shortlisted book Amongst Women.
I also found it interesting to read about McGahern's life as a writer: how he first discovered literature (a local priest had a wonderful library he was allowed to riffle); when he first realised he wanted to be a writer and not a priest or a farmer, two options that had been open to him; and how he dealt with the ups and downs of his career (lauded by the literary elite, banned by the Irish censors).
All in all, fans of McGahern's fiction will find much to admire in this wise and compelling book, but even if you have not read any of his novels or short stories this is a must read memoir that will have you rushing to read everything he has ever written.
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