recapitulates and refashions characters, themes and situations from McGahern’s first two novels,
The Barracksand
The Dark. The central figure, Michael Moran, is a domestic tyrant in the mould of Mahoney in
The Dark, a father whose hold over his family, especially his three daughters, is “pure binding”. As a veteran of Ireland’s separatist struggle he has an obvious affinity with Reegan of
The Barracks, whose bitter disenchantment with independent Ireland he savagely echoes: ‘“What did we get for it? A country, if you’d believe them. Some of our own johnnies in the top jobs instead of a few Englishmen. More than half my own family work in England …. The whole thing was a cod”’. Other narrative details – Moran’s second, childless marriage to a…
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Citation: Harte, Liam. "Amongst Women". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 March 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6723, accessed 24 November 2024.]
