That They May Face the Rising Sun

Irish writer John McGahern's first new novel in 12 years, That They May Face the Rising Sun, is a work of delicately forged beauty, the nearest he has yet come to writing of happiness. The plot remains defiantly not the thing for McGahern, with little of consequence happening beyond life's natural syncopations, yet the nuances of language and relationship soar as gracefully as the abundant wildfowl that crowd the book's pages. News is the old currency, carried in the dialogue which remains McGahern's most discernible talent. Set in rural County Leitrim, the inhabitants of the houses around the lake and the local town, heady on the whiskey elixir that loosens tongues or seals deals, watch as their insular community is gently pummelled by the creeping advance of modern life. While they share the year's natural cycle, the unfolding months reveal their personal differences: Joe and Kate Ruttledge, returned after a long spell in London; Mary and Jamesie, their whole life lived there; John Quinn, the charming, brutal womaniser, who marries and loses as quickly the bride he finds at the Knock Marriage Bureau; The Shah, Kate's uncle, who wordlessly sells his business to his cripplingly honest assistant, Frank; and Jimmy Joe Kiernan, auctioneer and undertaker, a veteran IRA man still on the lookout for stray souls. And then there is Jamesie's brother Joseph, the best shot in the district, who went to England after a woman, and stayed there, his soul sold for the "alphabetical" order of English life.

There is little alphabetical to McGahern's view of life, though there is consummate poetry. His narrative quietly rumbles out its melody through gentle variance, undulating conversations over the restless scars of violent pasts and fractured presents, the Troubles only ever across the nearby border. Stories are for the re-telling, yet the intrusion of telephone wires and Blind Date merely formalises the inevitable, the secularisation of ritual, and the dying of belief, if not yet habit. Already acclaimed as one of Ireland's leading writers for works such as High Ground and Amongst Women, to read this offering is to appreciate the unique beauty of the novel form, and the rare, bewitching talent of John McGahern. --David Vincent

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Gentle Giant - Rated
A wonderful book, spellbinding in it's gentleness, and empathy. Ambient literature, the verbal equivalent of Stars Of the Lid. Absolutely recommended. :)

A beautiful, slow-moving book - Rated
This book, published in the USA under the title By the Lake, was the late John McGahern's last novel.

It is a beautiful, slow-moving book that mirrors the gentle rhythm of rural life and brims with a subdued love of nature.

In its depiction of the changing seasons and the farming calendar -- the birth of lambs, the cutting of hay -- it tells an almost universal story about humankind and its relationship to the land and the climate. But this is more than a book about what it is like to live in the Irish countryside. It also tells an important, often overlooked tale, of how humans interact with each other when they live in small communities.

That They May Face The Rising Sun is brought alive by a cast of intriguing, some might say eccentric, characters, although it mainly revolves around a pair of middle-aged outsiders -- Kate and Joe, who fled the London rat race to try a gentler way of living. Over the course of a year we learn about their ups and downs, their hopes and fears, the ways in which they lead their quiet lives on a day-to-day basis and the people they befriend along the way.

There is little action to drive the narrative forward. Instead the reader comes to know -- and appreciate -- the rituals of rural living that inch this story along. Aided by McGahern's calm, meditative prose, it's hard not to be emotionally affected by the simplicity -- and realism -- of the story. I loved every word.

Authentic, poetic, wonderful - Rated
As someone who hails from the midlands of Ireland, this book struck me as the most authentic rendering of the type of life I remember from my childhood visits to my grandmother's farm in Co. Roscommon (situated near Leitrim where the novel is set).

The dialogue, topics of conversation, obsession with the little happenings in the community are simply spot on. Reading the book took me back there to the farm house the way it was 30 years ago, to the people who used to call in for a cup of tea and a chat. Even the depictions of the way children acted in the presence of adults was poignantly real for me. It felt as though I was reading a book about my own childhood, with the details only very slightly changed.

For me, the characters in the book were larger than life because in almost every case I knew people just like them. The descriptions of nature are breath-taking and again, completely accurate.

It's a slow-moving book, mirroring the rhythm of the lives it depicts ... I can only describe it as lyrical, poetic and wonderful. I am saddened to read the negative reviews on Amazon which describe 'That they may face the rising sun' as trite and hackneyed ... I just can't see that at all ... I really believe this is a wonderful piece of literature and I am not at all one for wallowing in nostalgia.

I did wonder as I was reading it if people outside Ireland would 'get' the book, but it sounds like most of the criticism is coming from Irish people and most of the praise from other parts of the world so perhaps my fears were unfounded!

Read it ... decide for yourself!

Not waving but drowning - Rated
I fully endorse the comments made by "A Reader" - this is dreadful. What might have just have made it as a cutesy short story in a Sunday broadsheet has been elongated to breaking point. And God, is it dull! It's exactly this kind of whimsy which made me flee Ireland for the meaner and grittier streets of London. Like "A Reader", I had to keep checking the dust cover to identify who was speaking! Trite and one-dimensional. A glutinous nostalgia-fest with too many poorly-worked out (if at all) strands. The Irish Tourist Board will love it.

quietly beautiful - Rated
While most literary writers leave me cold for precisely the reason that they cannot come up with a decent plot, that this has no discerible plot made absolutely no difference to me. I adored it; the soft musical tone of a consumate storyteller was a delight to read in a way that many literary novelists never manage.