Edna O'Brien and the Art of Fiction

MAUREEN O'CONNOR lectures in English at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland. She is the author of The Female and the Species: The Animal in Irish Women's Writing and co-editor of Edna O'Brien: New Critical Perspectives, Wild Colonial Girl: Essays on Edna O'Brien, and Ireland and India: Colonies, Culture, and Empire.

"This is a scholarly, sensitive, balanced exploration of the work of a great writer. It is beautifully written and very accessible. Maureen O'Connor has left no stone unturned in her painstaking research and the result is a wonderful book, indispensable for anyone with an interest in Edna O'Brien or contemporary Irish literature. Thank you, Maureen O'Connor!"— Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, author of Little Red and Other Stories"Readable yet theoretically sophisticated, this welcome new study offers an authoritative look at one of Ireland's greatest—and historically most underappreciated—writers. O'Connor ranges comprehensively through O'Brien's canon to trace her career-long feminist critique of Irish society's patriarchal mores. Both a history of O'Brien criticism and an examination of her work, O'Connor's exciting study offers a forceful defense of O'Brien's craft and an unapologetic critique of the social forces hampering the reception and interpretation of her canon. This study is destined to become required reading in O'Brien studies."— Kathleen Costello-Sullivan, author of Trauma and Recovery in the Twenty-First-Century Irish Novel"O'Connor's close readings, coupled with a deft use of theory, nimbly move between texts in O'Brien's oeuvre, highlighting recurring images and preoccupations, resulting in a valuable critical account that firmly illustrates O'Brien's mastery as a writer; and asserts her as a figure in Irish literary culture deserving of continued attention."— Irish University Review"In this meticulous, forensic, and illuminating work of scholarship, Dr. O'Connor sets the benchmark for all future studies of one of Ireland's greatest writers. In what amounts to a powerful work of restorative justice, she establishes once and for all the high and deliberate guiding intelligence that animates O'Brien's work."— Theo Dorgan, author of Orpheus"We are only beginning to understand O'Brien's impact on the fields of women's writing, Irish literature, contemporary writing, and feminist postcolonial studies. Edna O'Brien and the Art of Fiction is a landmark book—a turning point—for future conversations."— Tara Harney-Mahajan, James Joyce Literary Supplement"Maureen O'Connor nails once and (one hopes) for all the myth of Edna O'Brien as wailing Irish banshee. Instead O'Connor makes a scholarly and at the same time impassioned case for O'Brien as a serious, creative artist thoroughly cognizant of what she is about and decades ahead of her fellow Irish in her analysis of political, social, and environmental ills."— Heather Ingman, author of Irish Women's Fiction: From Edgeworth to Enright

• Preface and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Edna O'Brien, Leader of the Banned 1 Anti-Oedipal Desires2 The Liberating Sadomasochism of Things3 The Ungrammatical Sublime 4 Otherworldly Possessions 5 Myth and Mutation 6 Disorder, Dirt, and Death Notes Bibliography Index