John McGahern, 71; Irish Novelist Drew From His Rural Roots
from the LA Times
DUBLIN, Ireland — John McGahern, the writer known for semi-autobiographical portraits of rural life and widely praised as one of Ireland’s great modern novelists, died of cancer Thursday at a Dublin hospital, his family and friends said. He was 71.
It was not announced what kind of cancer McGahern had or how long he had been ill.
After six novels, four collections of short stories and a play, McGahern published his memoir, “All Will Be Well,” last year.
His body of work reflected his upbringing in County Roscommon: a world dominated by grief for his mother, who died of cancer when he was a boy, and the twin tyrannies of the Roman Catholic Church and his father, a police sergeant who savagely beat McGahern and his five sisters.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Thomas McGonigle called “All Will Be Well” an “icy, meticulous delineation of the torment that a father inflicted upon his children.”
“At the same time,” McGonigle added, “McGahern creates a touching portrait of enduring Irish womanhood in the figure of his schoolteacher mother.”
