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But they will.”
McGahern's trademarks included a loving attention to the detail of Ireland's rural life: its plants and animals, its textures and smells – and the witty idiom and darker insular dynamics of its people.His final novel, “That They May Face the Rising Sun,” charted the social and seasonal changes in a border farming community without relying on conventional dramatic hooks – or even much plot.
In an interview last year, McGahern said he had attempted “to take plot and everything else out of the novel and see what was left.”
“In fiction, the most powerful weapon the writer has is suggestion.
I think that nearly all good writing is suggestion, and all bad writing is statement.
Statement kills off the reader's imagination.
With suggestion, the reader takes up from where the writer leaves off,” he told The Guardian newspaper.
While he wrote for a few hours each day, McGahern remained a part-time farmer, and shu...
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