That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern
Joe and Kate Ruttledge have come to rural Ireland from London in
search of a different life. In passages of beauty and truth, the
drama of a year in their lives and those of the memorable
characters that move about them unfolds through action, the
rituals of work, religious observances and play. By the novel’s close
we feel that we have been introduced, with deceptive simplicity, to
a complete representation of existence – an enclosed world has
been transformed into an Everywhere.
John McGahern’s magnificent last novel is as good as any Irish novel ever written.
