A PAGAN PLACE is Edna O'Brien's true novel of Ireland. Here she returns to that uniquely wonderful, terrible, peculiar place she once called home and writes not only of a life there--of the child becoming a woman--but of the Irish experience out of which that life arises--perhaps more pointedly than in any of her other works. This is the Ireland of country villages and barley fields, of druids in the woods, of unknown babies in the womb, of mischievous girls and Tans with guns. Ireland has marked Edna O'Brien's life and work with unmistakable color and depth, and here she recreates her homeland with a singular grace and intensity.
O'Brien returns to the Ireland of "The Country Girls" to trace the story and feelings of a child as she reacts to her upbringing in a world of poverty, bigotry, superstition and ignorance. Incidents and scenery are described in minute, vivid detail. Major and minor characters come to life as small happenings are described, conversations word by word and the setting object by object. The food, factions, fictions, gossip, assumptions, and methods of hiding or misjudging the truth are closely observed as are their consequences in a place that is uniquely Irish.
