John McGahern

McGahern's command of the short story places him among the finest practitioners of the form, in a lineage that runs from Chekhov through Joyce and the Anglo-American masters. When the collection was first published in 1992, the Sunday Times said 'there is a vivid pleasure to be had in the reading of these stories,' while for Cressida Connolly in the Evening Standard 'these wonderful stories are sad and true . . . McGahern is undoubtedly a great short story writer.' Many of the stories here are already classics: 'Gold Watch', 'High Ground' and 'Parachutes', among others. McGahern's spare, restrained yet powerfully lyrical language draws meaning from the most ordinary situations, and turns apparently undramatic encounters into profoundly haunting events: a man visits his embittered father with his new wife; an ageing priest remembers a funeral he had attended years before; a boy steals comics from a shop to escape the rain-bound melancholy of a seaside holiday; an ageing teacher, who has escaped a religious order, wastes his life in a rural backwater that he knows he will never leave.

From award-winning author John McGahern, a memoir of his childhood in the Irish countryside and the beginnings of his life as a writer. McGahern describes his early years as one of seven children growing up in rural County Leitrim, a childhood was marked by his father's violent nature and the early death of his beloved mother. Tracing the memories of home through both people and place, McGahern details family life and the beginnings of a writing career that would take him far from home, and then back again. Haunting and illuminating, All Will Be Well is an unforgettable portrait of Ireland and one of its most beloved writers.

John McGahern's astounding memoir of his childhood:'A glowing masterpiece.' Hilary Mantel'The one Irish writer everyone should read.' Colm TóibínAs wise and compelling a book as any of his elegiac and graceful novels.' David Mitchell'I have admired, even loved, McGahern's work since his first novel ... Memoir strips the skin off his fiction as he faces a desperate early life with great force and tenderness.' Melvyn BraggThis is the story of John McGahern's childhood, his mother's death, his father's anger and violence, and how, through his discovery of books, his dream of becoming a writer began. At the heart of Memoir is a son's unembarrassed tribute to his mother. His memory of walks with her through the narrow lanes to the country schools where she taught and his happiness as she named for him the wild flowers on the bank remained conscious and unconscious presences for the rest of his life. A classic family story, told with exceptional restraint and tenderness, Memoir cannot fail to move all those who read it.'Magnificent ... Stand[s] supreme in the Irish canon.' Irish Times'Profoundly beautiful.' Daily Telegraph'Extraordinary, spellbinding, spiritual.' Irish Independent''In a tremendously distinguished career, he has never written more movingly, or with a sharper eye.' Andrew Motion, Guardian

A year in the lives of the unforgettable inhabitants of a modern-day Irish village--the Ruttledges, Londoners seeking a new way of life; the womanizing John Quinn; Jimmy Joe McKiernan, local head of the IRA; locals Jamesie and his wife Mary; and "the Shah," the wealthiest man in town--unfolds through a cycle of work, play, religious festivals, and the changing seasons. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.

These 34 funny, tragic, bracing, and acerbic stories represent the complete short fiction of one of Ireland's finest living writers. On struggling farms, in Dublin's rain-drenched streets, or in parched exile in Franco's Spain, McGahern's characters wage a confused but touching war against the facts of life.

Michael Moran is an old Irish Republican whose life was forever transformed by his days of glory as a guerrilla leader in the Irish War of Independence. Moran is till fighting with his family, his friends, and even himself in this haunting testimony to the enduring qualities of the human spirit."