Product Description

In a London pub in the 1950's, editor William Maginn is intrigued by a mention a the strange - and reputedly shameful - demise of a remote mountain village in County Kerry, where he was born. Maginn returns to Kerry and uncovers an astonishing tale: both the account of the destruction of a place and the way of life which once preserved Ireland's ancient traditions and the tragedy of an increasingly isolated village where all the women mysteriously die - leaving the priest, Father McGreevy, to cope with insoluble problems. As war rages through Europe, McGreevy struggles to preserve what remains of his parish, against the rough mountain elements and the grief and superstitions of its people, and the growing distrust of the town below.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #503793 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 313 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It is London in the late 1950s. William Maginn is a literary editor who believes he has left the Ireland of his childhood behind when one of his relatives and drinking partners tells him the mysterious story of "a dead village up in the mountains" in County Kerry, involving "a trial that shamed the town". Travelling back to Kerry, Maginn begins to trawl the court records, where he stumbles across the deposition of Father Hugh McGreevy, the unfortunate priest of the village who died. The majority of the rest of the terrible story is told in the words of the priest, who insists that "I kept a Christian community together in its extremity, and prevented it, through the grace of God as conveyed by his sacraments, from falling into barbarity". The story is an unabating one of misery, suffering and ignorance, as over the space of two winters the small rural village first loses all its women to sickness, and then descends into bestial and pagan acts, as Father Hugh tries in vain to keep his flock together, with the Second World War a distant "echo" on the wireless.

Short-listed for the Booker Prize, The Deposition of Father McGreevy is an elegant, unrelenting story of the disintegration of an Irish way of life as institutional religion, nationalism and the darker forces of human nature conspire to destroy a people and a place that O'Doherty evokes with great pathos. Musing on the Father's deposition, Maginn ponders "I'm not sure what it tells us beyond the fact that there are some good people, some bad people, and a lot of people who are one or the other depending on the circumstances". The moral may be simple, but as the Irish would say, it's the way that you tell it. --Jerry Brotton

Review
"Magical to the core. Read it and be smitten by this masterpiece as I was" - Walter Abish"O'Doherty"s powerful and sometimes magical writing keeps a reader closely involved" - Julian Moynahan, New-York Review of Books"O'Doherty's eloquent proses conjures up snow and cold and isolation as clearly as it does small town spite and gossip...bone-chilling" - Atlantic Monthly"Eerily compelling" - Elle

About the Author
Brian O'Doherty was born in County Roscommon in 1934. His novels include The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P. (1992) and The Deposition of Father McGreevey (1999), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2000. Also known as the conceptual and installation artist Patrick Ireland - he changed his name in reaction to the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry in 1972 - he has served as editor of Art in America and was the on-air art critic for NBC. Currently, he is professor of fine arts and media at the Southampton College campus of Long Island University. He is the author of numerous works of art criticism, including his book American Masters and the influential essay "Inside the White Cube." and American Masters: "The Voice and the Myth". He lives in New York City and Todi, Italy.

Customer Reviews

The power of rumor, fear, and moral rigidity.
The sad, inexorable decline of a tiny, remote village of the Dingle Peninsula on the southern tip of Ireland is the framework for this affecting and engrossing Booker Award nominee. Setting his novel in one of the most inhospitable places on earth for farming, with its almost bare, rocky outcroppings, a thin cover of grass, and slopes more easily negotiated by mountain goats than men, O'Doherty presents tough villagers coping with the most basic problems of life, death, and survival. Father McGreevy, the local priest to a congregation of fewer than twenty people, is being deposed as part of an investigation into the deaths of all five wives and one of the men in the village during a particularly harsh winter in which the village was comletely isolated from the town. Long-standing conflicts between village and town are obvious.

In fluid, almost lyrical, prose O'Doherty creates characters the reader cares about, while showing their limitations and "blemishes," as they deal with the conflicts. The suspense becomes almost palpable as details of the harsh winter are revealed, and rapidly spreading rumors stretch the patience of the villagers to the breaking point. As events spiral to their inevitable conclusion, the reader becomes trapped in the same whirlwind that sweeps up the practical villagers and experiences their same sense of desolation and loss. This is a sensitive portrayal of the harshest of lives, and at the conclusion the reader is uncertain whether any single event could have changed the outcome. Mary Whipple

Aisling Community
The catalyst of this novel is a wild goose by the name of William Maginn, an émigré Irish Literary editor who resides in 1950s London. A visit to The Antelope pub has him hear mention of his hometown, and an intriguing story besides. Since Maginn is a professional literary editor, he has no option but to follow the story by doing his own research. A little digging reveals that he's related to the main star of the show, a certain Father Hugh McGreevy. And a wee bit of thievery reveals Father McGreevy's deposition.

From the start, we know what's going to happen in the end - we know what will become of Father McGreevy. Yet, once we become embroiled in Father McGreevy's narrative, we forget all that and concentrate on his story. Father McGreevy is a priest of a mountain community in County Kerry that is always cut off by the snows of winter. However, this winter has been particularly bad, and a disaster sucks the life out of the community, as one by one, all the women die. The men of the village are also afflicted by the same mystery illness, but recover. Due to the hardness of the frozen land, none of the men can bury their wives until the thaw comes. No one from the town below can reach them, and there isn't any way of communicating their plight. It's just as well that the one woman who remains, Biddy McGurk, is well used to tending to the dead. The thaw brings some relief and some grief also, for it is decided by a county doctor that the women's bodies must be disinterred for an inquest. The medical authorities are fearful of a virus that kills only women, and memories are still haunted by the 1918 flu epidemic. Father McGreevy intervenes on the behalf of his small community, for he knows only too well how the men would react. So it is that Father McGreevy first assumes the role of protector. It's not long before he's called upon his duty once more, as the Bishop desires to avoid a repetition of the last winter by having Father McGreevy's community broken up and brought down to the town. So it is that Father McGreevy pleas a stay of execution for just one year, and sets in motion a dramatic series of events. But is Father McGreevy really the best guardian of his community?

One of the things that have whittled away McGreevy's community is the disease of the diaspora. The young people have an overwhelming desire to leave. The opportunities for long-range travel have been drastically reduced by the coincidence of the Second World War. The good Father listens to his radio hoping that the English will win, but also that they will have a good beating. He would be justified in thinking that his own community has had its share of misery. But then he witnesses a beastly sin which sickens him to the core, and which he cannot ignore. Here I think is where O'Doherty is at his bravest, since the novel could have descended into some cheap sheep joke (indeed, Doctor McKenna cannot help but chuckle when Father McGreevy goes to him for advice). This is where O'Doherty's choice of priest as narrator/protagonist really shines, since it allows a very controversial subject to be dealt with in all its ramifications without ever becoming crude.

It would also seem of a necessity that William Maginn and Father McGreevy be related, since both are greatly interested in the traditions of Irish literature - it is just as well that Maginn is a literary editor. This poetic theme has retreats as well as victorious advances however. Maginn, who remarks that the policeman who has the patience to jot down the priest's tale must be very green indeed, openly admits the artifice of Father McGreevy's deposition. O'Doherty seems conscious of this flaw, which is no doubt why he invented Maginn in the first place. I have to admire O'Doherty for doing this, and I suspect it's just the kind of thing that I would do in his place - to have any criticisms of the novel already articulated within the text. Maginn does describe his footnotes in the text as "intrusions", and it does seem very much at times as though the literary editor is trespassing. I had a personal reason for disliking the footnotes, since I tend to see myself as a proactive reader who likes to look up references for myself. I'm not one of the "slothful and careless readers" that Maginn has expected to read Father McGreevy's narration.

Yet without the footnotes, you probably wouldn't appreciate the poetic theme that culminates in Muiris' dream. The aisling form runs throughout this carefully constructed novel: the vision of Ireland as woman visiting the poet, offering a message of hope. Father McGreevy seems determined to hold onto the old world, but recognises a superior storyteller in Muruis. Muruis, for his part, whilst still keeping the stories of the past, cannot but help adapting them in the face of stony reality.

Until now, I was convinced that O'Doherty, whilst providing a most poetic narrative, hadn't yet produced that vital spark to really get me drawn into his tale. But then I began to wonder about William Maginn. I discovered that Maginn was an Irish writer who had contributed to the legendary Blackwood's magazine. That made me curious, so I did some further research on Fraser's Magazine. I found the connection in an article about a writer who I've studied much recently, the Reverend Francis Sylvester O'Mahony, the one and only 'Father Prout' - it turns out that William Maginn founded Fraser's Magazine in 1830. And considering that he must he 150 years old by the time that he stumbles upon Father McGreevy's deposition, William Maginn's not that bad as a narrator at all. He certainly got me hooked by the end.

Exceptional
This is a fantastic piece of prose, unselfconsciously brilliant writing, totally compelling. The priest's narrative is incredibly evocative and powerful. I read it in a single sitting. It is a sort of gothic novel about an isolated community. Faith, madness, sexuality, the meaning of religion, these are some of the themes. The writing is such that even the most mundane aspects of village life are made quite fascinating: this is writing to rave about.