The Agnes Browne Trilogy includes: * The Mammy * The Chisellers * The Granny

    There are the Ruttledges, who came from London in search of a different life on the edge of the village lake; John Quinn, who will stop at nothing to ensure a flow of women through his life; Jimmy Joe McKiernan, head of the local IRA as well as town auctioneer and undertaker; the gentle Jamesie and his wife, Mary, who have never left the lake and who know about everything that ever stirred or moved there; Patrick Ryan, the builder who never quite finishes what he starts; Bill Evans, the farmhand whose orphaned childhood was marked with state-sanctioned cruelties and whose adulthood is marked by the scars; and the wealthiest man in town, known as the Shah. A year in the lives of these and other characters unfolds through the richly observed rituals of work and play, of religious observance and annual festivals, and the details of the changing seasons, of the cycles of birth and death. With deceptive simplicity and eloquence, the author reveals the fundamental workings of human nature as it encounters the extraordinary trials and pleasures, terrors and beauty, of ordinary life.By the Lake is John McGahern’s most ambitious, generous, and superbly realized novel yet.(above copied from amazon.com)

    There are more shades to John B. Keane's humor than there are colors in the rainbow. Compassion, shrewdness, and a glorious sense of fun and roguery are evident in this collection, which brings together John B. Keane's tales. A fitting tribute to John B. Keane, for decades Ireland's favorite storyteller, this winning short story collection typifies the late author's folkloric imagination and storytelling arts.

    Even before the publication of his 1968 collection with the Dolmen Press, Anatomy of a Cliche, his poems earned critical esteem and, in time, they were recognized by the Irish Poetry Prize in 1980, a Poetry Ireland Choice in 1987, and awards from the Irish-American Cultural Institute and the American Ireland Fund. He was a member of Ireland's distinguished arts academy, Aosdana. From brief early lyrics to more extended meditations, and including a number of unpublished gems, this collection represents forty years of coruscating art.

    Engaged politically, but also concerned with issues that confront women throughout the world, the writers in this collection embody in their work the interconnection of the personal and the political, the individual and the social. Their voices, emanating from diverse backgrounds, demonstrate the range and depth of contemporary fiction by Irish women.

    Once again, he explores the heart and psyche of the common man in these three interconnected monologues. The young man who is desperate to move out of his parent's house once and for all; the middle-aged man, a borderline alcoholic and serial loser who has landed a job he's not qualified for; and the old man, a sprightly widower who tries to make the most of his mundane retirement home existence. Set against a backdrop of contemporary Dublin—these three different generations are vastly different yet all three share a common concern about lost love—and their own part in losing it. The power of these three interlocking stories grows gradually into one incisive portrait of Dublin life, in a play that is hilarious in its detail and moving in its portrait of ordinary lives. Conor McPherson was born in 1971 in Dublin. He is best known for The Weir which ran in London's West End for 18 months as well as a lengthy Broadway run. He has won the Laurence Olivier, Critics Circle, Evening Standard, Meyer-Whitworth, Stewart Parker and George Devine awards. Following I Went Down (1998), his second film, Saltwater, which he directed himself, recently opened in London.Also available by Conor McPherson:The Weir and Other PlaysPB $15.95 1-55936-167-0 • USADublin CarolPB $11.95 1-55936-185-9 • USA