Goodbye Yeats and O’Neill: Farce in Contemporary Irish and Irish-American Narratives(183 Costerus New Series)

Goodbye Yeats and O’Neill is a reading of one or two books recently written by the following major authors: Roddy Doyle, Colm Tóibín, John McGahern, William Trevor, Seamus Deane, Nuala O’Faolain, Patrick McCabe, Colum McCann, Nick Laird, Gerry Adams, Claire Boylan, Frank McCourt, Tim O’Brien, Michael Patrick MacDonald, Alice McDermott, Edward J. Delaney, Beth Lordan, William Kennedy, Thomas Kelly, and Mary Gordon. The study argues that farce has been a major mode of recent Irish and Irish-American fiction and memoir—a primary indicator of the state of both Irish and Irish-American cultures in the early twenty-first century.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction. The Donkeys and the Narrowbacks: Contemporary Circus Animals Part One: Memoirs – Defining Where We Are Now 1. Defining the Object for Struggle: Epistemology in the Age of Autobiography – Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes and Seamus Deane, Reading in the Dark 2. Belfast and South Boston: Cut off from Serious Consideration – Gerry Adams, Before the Dawn and Michael Patrick MacDonald, All Souls 3. The Void of Irish Identity: Nuala O’Faolain, Are You Somebody Part Two: The Writers Strike Back: Using Irony to Subvert the Fascination of Cultural Studies 4. Tim O’Brien’s Ironic Aesthetic: Faith and the Nature of a “True” Story (co-authored with John Briggs) 5. The Delusion of Cultural Studies: Colm Tóibín, The Blackwater Lightship Part Three: Serious and Not-So-Serious Farce in Contemporary Irish Fiction 6. Picaresque Farce: Nick Laird, Utterly Monkey 7. Icons for the New Age: The Transvestite in Patrick McCabe’s Breakfast on Pluto and the Ballet Dancer in Colum McCann’s Dancer 8. Home Isn‘t There Any More: William Trevor’s The Story of Lucy Gault and John McGahern’s By the Lake 9. Transforming Nostalgia for the Victorian: Clare Boylan’s Charlotte Brontë Novel, Emma Brown 10. The Irish Western Epic: Roddy Doyle Remakes John Ford – The Last Roundup Part Four: Farce in Contemporary Irish-American Fiction: Symptom of the Triviality of American Society 11. The American Wake: Alice McDermott, Child of My Heart 12. Being Irish and Being Nothing: The Abyss of Identity in Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy and Edward J. Delaney’s Fiction 13. The Headache and the Aspirin: Sex as Disease and Cure in Sherman Alexie’s The Toughest Indian in the World, Colum McCann’s This Side of Brightness, and Other Contemporary Stories 14. Low Seriousness in Beth Lordan’s But Come Ye Back 15. The Decay of Lying? On Life Support in William Kennedy’s Roscoe and Thomas Kelly’s The Rackets 16. Visiting the American Sixties on Ireland: Mary Gordon’s Pearl 17. The Necessity and Futility of Romance: Thomas Kelly’s Empire Rising Part Five: An Historian’s Need to Define the Irish Story 18. What Is the Irish Story? R.F. Foster’s The Irish Story Postscript: The Function of Farce at the Present Time Appendix: The Pattern of Reading in the Dark Bibliography

About the Author :
Edward A. Hagan is Professor of Writing at Western Connecticut State University. He is the author of High Nonsensical Words: A Study of the Works of Standish James O’Grady (Whitston, 1986). In addition to numerous journal articles, he has edited and introduced three volumes in the University College Dublin Classics of Irish History Series—To the Leaders of Our Working People by Standish James O’Grady (2002), Sun and Wind by Standish James O’Grady (2004), and The Green Republic by W.R. MacDermott (2004).

Review :
”…[The book introduces] important issues that demand the ongoing attention of anyone interested in Irish Studies.” in: Irish Literary Supplement, 2011