Some Favourite Reads
Amongst Women by John McGahern
This is a short book that you could read in a few days (the paperback edition is less than 200 pages), but one that resonates in the mind for years afterwards. Apparently the first draft came to over 1200 pages, so an astonishing amount of work must have gone into subsequent drafts, and it shows. There is not a word out of place, or a false note in any exchange between the characters. It is not the kind of writing that draws attention to itself, the prose is clear and unshowy, but of immense power. The kind of power that you get from condensing 1200 pages into 200.
The opening line is a memorable one: ‘As he weakened, Moran became afraid of his daughters.’ When you reach the end of the book you find yourself drawn back to that opening sentence, and realise that it is, in fact, a perfect summary of what the whole novel is about. Moran is a stubborn and domineering old Republican whose glory days are long gone and who fights with his family and anyone else who tries to get close to him. He feels betrayed when his children, crushed and infuriated by his unreasonable behaviour, escape to Dublin or London. The reader struggles to understand why his daughters remain so in thrall to Moran, even after they have fled the home. Gradually, you begin to realise that McGahern is exploring the overpowering need to form connections with the past, to somehow accommodate one’s heritage and upbringing, even when it has been very damaging. In that sense, it is much more than a novel about the traumatic changes that one family goes through, but rather a novel about a nation going through traumatic changes – Ireland.
Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler.
Another novel about a family, and another with a great opening line - ‘While Pearl Tull was dying, a funny thought occurred to her.’ I've always admired Tyler’s beautifully light touch while writing about painful and complicated subjects. I didn't realise quite how skillful a writer she actually was until I read some other, supposedly heavyweight authors, who ventured into similar territory. In contrast to her, they seemed to puff themselves up and cry at the top of their voices 'I am now going to tackle a very important issue - pay attention at the back!' That’s just not Anne Tyler’s way. She is confident of her ability, and feels no need to play to the gallery. She once said that she got her best ideas while hovering, a tongue in cheek response to those who criticise her for rarely venturing beyond domestic settings.
In this novel she writes with such tremendous insight and humanity about each member of a wounded, difficult and bitterly divided family that you end up sympathising with them all. This is a book I would give recommend to anyone who was feeling lonely and neglected, in order to remind them of the ties that bind us all so closely together.
The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier.
My favourite teacher read it to us in primary school and I thought it was absolutely rivetting. It’s about four homeless children surviving by the skin of their teeth in Poland after World War Two, who embark on a perilous journey to try and find their parents. I was about nine years old at the time and, looking back, I think we felt flattered that she chose to read us what seemed like such an adult book. There was something inspirational in this story about destitute children battling against the odds, and Jan was a marvellous hero.
Until I came across The Silver Sword, all the war stories that I had read focused on plucky Brits or glamorous Americans. It sparked a life-long fascination with Poland, and in retrospect almost certainly inspired me to give Liam, the child narrator of my first novel, All This Is Mine, a fearless Polish friend (I resisted the temptation to call him Jan, and plumped instead for Marek). Just as a favourite record can transport you right back to where you were when you first heard it, whenever I re-read The Silver Sword I am back in that classroom, picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of my jumper, inhaling the thick, gluey smell from the inkwell and being read to while the rain patters against the windows.
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle
I first read Roddy Doyle when I was struggling to find my own voice, and it was as if someone had opened a door, and shown me what was possible. Before Doyle, it seemed that when you wrote about the working class, you had to be either deeply condescending, or in deadly earnest (which sometimes amounted to the same thing). His was a warts and all approach. Of course it helped that his books were absolutely hilarious. I thought ‘Yes! This is what I’ve been waiting for.’ Even though I didn’t know I had been waiting for it.
I have hugely enjoyed all his novels, but, for me, the best is the one that is usually seen as the grimmest. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors is a triumph of empathy, a near faultless mixture of raw emotion and an expert command of language and structure. Doyle’s great achievement is to make the inner life of this alcoholic, battered woman who works as a cleaner as rich and moving as any of the famous heroines of modern European fiction. It’s a novel that broadens and deepens your understanding of humanity. What more could you ask for?
Heroes by John Pilger
An inspirational book. He begins with the story of his great-great-grandfather, an Irishman transported in irons to Australia for uttering 'unlawful oaths', before moving on to encounters with people he’s met in his long career reporting from the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cambodia, Africa, the Middle East and Central America. Indeed a better title might be ‘Unsung Heroes’, as Pilger’s book focuses mainly on the stories of ordinary people struggling for their human rights. This is a book that brings history alive in the most vivid way.
At nearly 600 pages, it’s a long book, but these stories of brave and resourceful individuals keep you gripped. And what fascinating stories he uncovers here. Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader of North Vietnam, the implacable foe that the might of the USA could not defeat, had in fact been passionately pro-American as a young man. An American soldier had saved his life during the second world war, something that he never forgot. He based Vietnam’s declaration of Independence on the American constitution and sought for years to befriend the USA and receive its blessing, but his overtures were ignored. How many lives might have been saved if that early offer of friendship had been welcomed?
Lorrie Moore
She was one of those who inspired me to write myself. Her writing is charming, stylish, compassionate, and studded with terrific jokes. I warmly recommend her first two short story collections, Self-Help and Like Life, plus her excellent novel, Anagrams. Anyone who still thinks the Americans don't understand irony should read some Lorrie Moore, it's hard to think of anyone funnier. Certain passages are so good you find yourself repeating them to your friends, the way people used to with Woody Allen one liners, before we all went off him.
Dermot Healy
Dermot Healy is an amazing writer, and his last novel, Sudden Times, was one of his best, bettering even A Goat's Song. Think Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy and you're getting there. Like McCabe in that novel, he uses colloquial speech to explore the workings of an unbalanced mind in an extremely skillful way. Dark and very funny, brutal and quite beautifully human, its startling originality and crazy inventiveness make it almost impossible to categorise - that doesn't mean it has no plot, it does, a good one - and maybe that's why he hasn't the wider audience he deserves.
Richard Russo
Last year I 'discovered' Richard Russo. I loved his novel Empire Falls, which follows a group of characters struggling to get by in a small town in America that has been devestated by unemployment. Like Anne Tyler, Russo makes you care deeply about what happens to his unglamorous, unfashionable characters, and I can think of few men who write as well about families. The plotting is excellent, springing many surprises along the way, and the writing is so vivid you can see and smell everything that's happening in the Empire Grill that the central character runs. It is very funny too, something I sometimes forgot to mention when recommending it to friends, it has so many other qualities. I was utterly delighted to see it beat the hot favourite and much hyped The Corrections to win the coveted Pullitzer Prize.