History, Myth and Ritual in the Fiction of John McGahern

For this study of the fiction of Irish writer McGahern, one of the prominent writers to follow the generation of James Joyce, White (Presentation College, UK) talked extensively with McGahern and studied all of his published novels and short stories. White finds a variety of themes in McGahern's work, including a sense of social fragmentation, the role of ritual in sustaining the hope of transformation, and the hierarchical structure of the family. Running throughout McGahern's work is the hope for a possibility of transcendence to an ideal world. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)