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John McGahern’s astounding memoir of his childhood:
‘A glowing masterpiece.’ Hilary Mantel
‘The one Irish writer everyone should read.’ Colm Tóibín
As 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 Bragg
This 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
Born in 1934, John McGahern was the eldest of seven children, raised on a farm in the West of Ireland. The son of a Garda sergeant who had served as an IRA volunteer in the Irish War of Independence, he was devastated by his mother’s death when he was nine. An outstanding student, McGahern studied at University College Dublin and…
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