The Contemporary Irish Novel: Critical Readings

This essential guide offers innovative critical readings of key contemporary novels from Ireland and Northern Ireland. Linden Peach discusses texts that are representative of the richness of Irish writing during the 1980s and 1990s, and reads works by established authors alongside those by the new generation of writers. The novels examined include works by John Banville, Jennifer Johnston, Roddy Doyle, Emma Donoghue, Seamus Deane, William Trevor, Dermot Bolger, Joseph O'Connor, Patrick McCabe, Mary Morrissy, Glenn Patterson and Robert McLiam Wilson. The Contemporary Irish Novel addresses themes such as ghosts and haunting, mimicry, obedience and subversion, the relocation and reinscription of identity, the mother figure, parent-child relations, madness, masculinity, self-harm, sexuality, domestic violence, fetishism and postmodernity. Drawing on a range of critical approaches including postcolonial, gender and psychoanalytic theory, Peach explores and celebrates the diversity of Irish fiction and suggests that the boundary between literature and theory is as permeable as that between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgements Interruptive Narratives: Emergent Voices and Haunted Presents Posting the Present: Modernity and Modernization in Glenn Patterson's Fat Lad (1992) and Robert McLiam Wilson's Eureka Street (1996) Secret Hauntings: Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark (1996), Joseph O'Connor's The Salesman (1998), Jennifer Johnston's Fool's Sanctuary, Mary Leland's The Killeen (1985) and Linda Anderson's To Stay Alive (1984) Mimicry, Authority and Subversion: Brian Moore's The Magician's Wife (1998), Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin (2000) and John McGahern's Amongst Women (1990) Unspoken desires: Jennifer Johnston's later novels, Emma Donoghue's Stir-fry (1994) and Kathleen Ferguson's The Maid's Tale (1994) Fetishing Absence: Dermot Bolger's Father's Music (1997) and Emily's Shoes (1992) 'Mater Dolorasa': Abject Mothers in Roddy Doyle's The Snapper (1990) and Mary Morrissy's Mother of Pearl (1996) Limit and Transgression: Roddy Doyle's The Woman Who Walked into Doors (1996), Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy (1992) and William Trevor's Felicia's Journey (1994) Return to Silence and Beyond: Speculative Narrative in Bernard MacLaverty's Grace Notes (1997) and John Banville's Birchwood (1973) Afterword Appendix: Time Chart Select Bibliography Index.

About the Author :
LINDEN PEACH is Professor and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Gloucestershire. He has published extensively on twentieth-century writing, and his recent books include studies on Toni Morrison, Angela Carter and Virginia Woolf (also published by Palgrave Macmillan). LINDEN PEACH is Professor and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Gloucestershire. He has published extensively on twentieth-century writing, and his recent books include studies on Toni Morrison, Angela Carter and Virginia Woolf (also published by Palgrave Macmillan).

Review :
'...a lucid and sometimes provocative explication of the way things work in a selection of Irish writing...[Peach] uses a light touch that provides clear and cogent critical readings that students will find most helpful...an excellent resource for students and scholars in the growing sector of scholarship on Irish writing.' - Times Higher Educational Supplement