Irish Writer John McGahern Dies

People in Kansas City have often asked me to recommend Irish writers for them to read for a sense of Ireland. They tended not to hear me when I said John McGahern.

There was always a sense of unease and a sense of beauty in McGahern's writing. It was so familiar, so beautiful, and at times so heartbreakingly uncomfortable. In short, this is because it was home, and all that home is to everybody, with the details of nature and the awkwardness of family. It was of Ireland, and you loved and hated seeing yourself and your society in it.

Today, those of us who didn't speak his name loud enough in the past, speak it now to carry him into that international greatness that was never really bestowed upon him through the great novels. It's the Irish way.

John McGahern, writer, born November 12 1934; died March 30 2006