
Bernard MacLaverty
Richard Rankin Russell(Author)
Bucknell University Press,U.S.
Published on 31. August 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
234 pages
978-1-68448-561-1 (ISBN)
Description
This newly updated and expanded paperback edition of the first monograph in English on Northern Ireland-born Bernard MacLaverty discusses his fiction in its aesthetic, cultural, religious, and political contexts. Richard Rankin Russell emphasizes MacLaverty's dialectic of imprisonment versus freedom, the latter represented by love. Love in the earlier fiction is often perverted, whether in the name of family or Irish nationalism, but after the publication of the novel Cal (1983), its manifestations become more positive and characters are able to escape various forms of imprisonment. Russell identifies three distinct phases of MacLaverty's career-the visual, the sonic, and a blending of the two-and concludes by showing how MacLaverty's style, humor, and values enable his deeply humane fiction to model human community. Attentive to language and theoretically well informed, each chapter of this enterprising book analyzes a particular short story collection or novel, and also explores the salient features of MacLaverty's fiction generally.
Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Reviews / Votes
"This newly updated version of Richard Rankin Russell's pioneering study combines heartfelt appreciation for the artistry of Bernard MacLaverty's fiction with discerning critical assessment of its moral complexities and historical contexts. Russell makes a compelling case for MacLaverty as contemporary Northern Ireland's preeminent novelist and story-writer." - David Holdeman (coeditor of W. B. Yeats in Context) "This revised, expanded, and thoroughly up-to-date edition of Richard Rankin Russell's volume remains the indispensable companion-and compass-for any serious student of MacLaverty's creative works." - Richard Haslam (associate professor, Saint Joseph's University) "Bernard MacLaverty has remained creative and productive as a writer well into old age, so Richard Rankin Russell has updated his classic study of MacLaverty's fiction to take account of his most recent novel and collection of short stories. Fittingly, this new edition's sections on Midwinter Break and Blank Pages are among its highlights." - Marilynn Richtarik (author of Getting to Good Friday: Literature and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland) "This full-length study of a very popular and well-regarded Irish writer is lively, comprehensive, and critically acute: it is an admirable account of MacLaverty's art." - George Watson (professor of Irish literature, University of Aberdeen)More details
Series
Edition
Revised and Expanded
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
358 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-68448-561-1 (9781684485611)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
RICHARD RANKIN RUSSELL is a professor of English at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
Content
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Appearance Versus Reality in Secrets and Other Stories
2. True and Distorted Fatherly Loves in Lamb
3. Seasonal Communication in A Time to Dance and Other Stories
4. Perception, Confession, and Community in Cal
5. Hearing the Other: Sounds of Connection and Community in The Great Profundo and Other Stories
6. Ontological Encounters with Others in Walking the Dog and Other Stories
7. The Beauties of Grace Notes
8. The Buoyant Beauty of a Belfast Bildungsroman: The Anatomy School
9. The Truth of Fiction: Matters of Life and Death and Other Stories
10. "All Shall Be Well": Midwinter Break
11. Rescue and Resurrection Narratives: Blank Pages and Other Stories
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Appearance Versus Reality in Secrets and Other Stories
2. True and Distorted Fatherly Loves in Lamb
3. Seasonal Communication in A Time to Dance and Other Stories
4. Perception, Confession, and Community in Cal
5. Hearing the Other: Sounds of Connection and Community in The Great Profundo and Other Stories
6. Ontological Encounters with Others in Walking the Dog and Other Stories
7. The Beauties of Grace Notes
8. The Buoyant Beauty of a Belfast Bildungsroman: The Anatomy School
9. The Truth of Fiction: Matters of Life and Death and Other Stories
10. "All Shall Be Well": Midwinter Break
11. Rescue and Resurrection Narratives: Blank Pages and Other Stories
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index