Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #331589 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 171 pages

Customer Reviews

Not entirely pleasant, but it does grab you....
The material for this book echoes that of The Barracks and Memoirs, and is further evidence that the author wrote from life. The leave-taking itself refers to a teacher's last day at school - he is about to be sacked. The story flashes back to his childhood - an adored mother who dies young and a brutal father - this in an oppressive Ireland have indelibly marked the growing boy and the man he becomes. Between these events, in a year's leave of absence in London, a freer and more certain person finds love and contentment. The return to Ireland is accompanied by a air of doom.

There is a gentleness, tenderness even, to many of McGahern's characters, who are overwhelmed by tragic events. Or rather the one tragic event - the loss of a loved and loving parent. The book is infused with a melancholy, futility and even fatalism, but I do not find it whinging or too oppressive.

To me the genius of McGarhen's writing is how he infuses everything with this overwhelming feeling - how it is echoed in the landscape of Ireland. Human interaction, on the other hand, seems reduced to a formal sing-song like lines in a play or opera - ignoring the heartache within.

Not as shocking as The Barracks, not as lyrical as That They May Face the Rising Sun, but still up there....