Bernard MacLaverty

RICHARD RANKIN RUSSELL is a professor of English at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

• AcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction1. Appearance Versus Reality in Secrets and Other Stories2. True and Distorted Fatherly Loves in Lamb3. Seasonal Communication in A Time to Dance and Other Stories4. Perception, Confession, and Community in Cal5. Hearing the Other: Sounds of Connection and Community in The Great Profundo and Other Stories6. Ontological Encounters with Others in Walking the Dog and Other Stories7. The Beauties of Grace Notes8. The Buoyant Beauty of a Belfast Bildungsroman: The Anatomy School9. The Truth of Fiction: Matters of Life and Death and Other Stories10. “All Shall Be Well”: Midwinter Break11. Rescue and Resurrection Narratives: Blank Pages and Other StoriesAfterwordNotes BibliographyIndex

"This newly updated version of Richard Rankin Russell's pioneering study combines heartfelt appreciation for the artistry of Bernard MacLaverty's fiction with discerning critical assessment of its moral complexities and historical contexts. Russell makes a compelling case for MacLaverty as contemporary Northern Ireland’s preeminent novelist and story-writer." - David Holdeman (coeditor of W. B. Yeats in Context) "This revised, expanded, and thoroughly up-to-date edition of Richard Rankin Russell's volume remains the indispensable companion-and compass-for any serious student of MacLaverty's creative works." - Richard Haslam (associate professor, Saint Joseph's University) "Bernard MacLaverty has remained creative and productive as a writer well into old age, so Richard Rankin Russell has updated his classic study of MacLaverty's fiction to take account of his most recent novel and collection of short stories. Fittingly, this new edition's sections on Midwinter Break and Blank Pages are among its highlights." - Marilynn Richtarik (author of Getting to Good Friday: Literature and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland) "This full-length study of a very popular and well-regarded Irish writer is lively, comprehensive, and critically acute: it is an admirable account of MacLaverty's art." - George Watson (professor of Irish literature, University of Aberdeen)