Word: mcginleys
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ANOVEL ON AN UNUSUAL subject presents its author with a large problem: how does one prevent the subject from taking over the whole book?-Foggage.Patrick McGinley's third novel, features the incestuous love of a twin brother and sister living in the Irish country side. Luckily for the reader. McGinley is to skillful to allow the incest itself to absorb the story. His matter-of-fact treatment of the details of their love and a well-crafted plot keep the story from being bogged down by free-floating sentiment or shapeless descriptions of characters. McGinley's polse, skill, detachment...
...interest from clear and unembarrassed narrative. Kevin Hurley lives with his twin sister Maureen on a farm which very few people visit: their mother is dead and their father. now senile. is dying in the upstairs of the family farmhouse. Kevin and Maureen have been lovers for many years. McGinley. establishing the nature of their relationship in the first chapter, says...
...McGinley. however, does not lose much time in exploring metaphysical issues. The problem he presents in the very first chapter is the need to find a man who will appear to be the father of Maureen's unborn child. Kevin calls on his best friend, Murt Quane, and invites him over to the Hurley's farm. Tragically. Quane pulls into the Hurley's yard while Kevin is felling a tree; Quane is crushed by the falling trunk. One of Kevin's other friends, the misogynist veterinarian Festus O'Flaherty, arrives safety on the far but will have nothing...
McKinley's thoroughness and control of plot are marvelous. Up to the last chapter, the fate of his characters is in doubt. And although it is possible to see the novel from a purely moralistic views, the tone is never preachy or unnecessarily gloomy; McGinley shuns intellectual, moral, or narrative pomp. Rather, what is most striking in this work is the verisimillitude of the feelings he ascribes to his characters. For example, just after his marriage, Kevin tries to ease out of his relationship with his sister, who still wants to sleep with him. However, McGinley poignantly describes Kevin...
...premise of the story is unusual, and if the lives of his characters are more eventful than our own. McGinley realistically conveys their reactions to their own peculiar situation...