The Pear is Ripe by John Montague

The Pear is Ripe by John Montague

The book is full of warm anecdotes and wry observations on the numerous literary, artistic and musical characters John Montague encountered, befriended and occasionally provoked. He recounts his personal and professional relationships with such luminaries as Patrick Kavanagh, Allen Ginsberg and, as co-founder of Claddagh Records, with composer Sean O Riada. There is an interesting account of meeting Charles Haughey and a suggestion that a seed was sown that might have led ultimately to the introduction of the artist tax exemption. The Pear is Ripe covers a period of great social change and upheaval internationally and, in particular, the north of Ireland. Montague's proximity to these changes, by accident or design, was to influence his work and lends this memoir an immediacy that belies the intervening years. While much of the book covers the writer's public and literary life, it also addresses the strain that living apart from his wife Madeleine placed on their marriage - which would ultimately lead to their break-up. While the book principally spans the period from the mid-sixties to the late seventies, Montague has included a powerful and moving epilogue featuring more recent events. He writes of visiting young men with AIDS in a New York hospital, and of a final meeting with an ailing Samuel Beckett in Paris. Poetry Ireland director Joe Woods has spoken of the dearth of memoir by poets that may help to inform their work and its enjoyment. John Montague's book and its earlier companion Company: A Chosen Life hopefully will set a trend for some of the other workers in song to follow suit. In short, The Pear Is Ripe is a startling testimony from an engaging writer at the peak of his powers.

In 1929, John Montague was born in Brooklyn, New York. His family moved back to County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, where he was raised a few years later. He obtained his BA and MA degrees in philosophy from University College, Dublin. He obtained his MFA from the University of Iowa in 1955. He served as a Paris correspondent for The Irish Times before embarking on a career as a college professor.

He has lectured at universities across the globe, including France, Ireland, Canada, and the United States. He was named the first Irish Professor of Poetry in 1998, with a three-year position split between The Queen's University in Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, and University College Dublin. He now splits his time between West Cork, Ireland, and France. He has won numerous honors, including the Irish-American Cultural Institute's Literature Award, the American Ireland Foundation Literary Award in 1995, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

He is the author of several collections and an anthology editor. Berkeley's Telephone and Other Fictions (Lilliput Publishing, 2000) is a collection of his short stories. Wake Forest published his past eleven books, the most recent of which is Speech Lessons (2012).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781905483259
ISBN 10	1905483252
Title	The Pear is Ripe
Author	John Montague
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Liberties Press Ltd
Year published	2015-03-02
Number of pages	258
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.