That They May Face the Rising Sun by John Mcgahern
From the very opening pages, we see many memorable characters as they move about the Ruttledges, who have come to Ireland from London in search of a different life. There is John Quinn, who will stop at nothing to ensure a flow of women; Johnny, who left for England twenty years before in pursuit of love; and Jimmy Joe McKiernan, head of the IRA, both auctioneer and undertaker. The gentle Jamesie and his wife Mary embody the spirit of the place. They have never left the lake but know everything that ever stirred or moved there. The drama of a year in the lives of these and many other characters unfolds through the action, the rituals of work, religious observances and play. With deceptive simplicity, by the novel's close we feel that we have been introduced to a complete representation of existence. An enclosed world has been transformed into an Everywhere.
'McGahern brings us that tonic gift of the best fiction, the sense of truth - the sense of a transparency that permits us to see imaginary lives more clearly than we see our own' John Updike
Born in 1934, John McGahern was the eldest of seven children. Raised on a farm in the West of Ireland, he was the son of a Garda sergeant who had served as an IRA volunteer in the Irish War of Independence; his mother died when he was nine. He became a primary school teacher in Dublin but was dismissed when his second novel, The Dark, was banned in 1965 for 'obscene' content. Living subsequently between London, Paris and upstate New York, he and his second wife Madeline Green eventually settled back in his native Leitrim in the early 1970s. The author of six acclaimed novels and four story collections, McGahern was shortlisted for the 1990 Booker Prize for Amongst Women and awarded the Irish PEN Award, the Prix Ecureuil de Littérature Etrangère and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He died in 2006.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780571212163 |
| ISBN 10 | 0571212166 |
| Title | That They May Face the Rising Sun |
| Author | John Mcgahern |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Faber & Faber |
| Year published | 2005-02-24 |
| Number of pages | 304 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2003, Short-listed for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2003 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |