Call My Brother Back: A classic Irish novel about the Troubles of 1920-22

by Michael McLaverty

Overview

‘His tact and pacing, in the individual sentence and the overall story are beautiful … McLaverty’s place in our literature is secure.’ Seamus Heaney

It is 1918 and thirteen-year-old Colm MacNeill is living happily on Rathlin Island when his security is suddenly shattered by the death of his father. The loss of the family breadwinner forces the MacNeills to leave their island home to make a life for themselves in the city. On the streets of Belfast Colm and his brothers enjoy a different kind of freedom – childhood adventures that run late into the evening, games that last for days and friendly tussles make life in the city a new kind of liberation.

The sense of freedom is, however, short-lived. As sectarian violence erupts in Belfast – and Colm’s brother gets involved in the IRA – the MacNeills become unavoidably and tragically caught up in the Troubles of the early 1920s.

Acknowledged as a classic of Irish writing, Call My Brother Back is a beautifully written novel by a writer who has been compared to both Chekhov and Joyce. If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy Michael McLaverty’s novel Lost Fields or his critically acclaimed Collected Short Stories.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780856408786
Publisher:	Blackstaff Press, The
Publication date:	11/24/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	439 KB

About the Author

Michael McLaverty was born in County Monaghan in 1904 and grew up in Belfast, spending childhood holidays on Rathlin Island.

He became a schoolteacher in Belfast and was later a headmaster there until his retirement.

One of Ireland’s most distinguished writers, he was a great influence on poet Seamus Heaney, who said of his writing: 'His tact and pacing, in the individual sentence and the overall story, are beautiful: in his best work, the elegiac is bodied forth in perfectly pondered images and rhythms'. Mc Laverty is best remembered for his short stories and for the novels Call My Brother Back (1939) and Lost Fields (1941). 

He died in 1992.

Read an Excerpt

It is 1918 and thirteen-year-old Colm MacNeill is living happily on the idyllic island of Rathlin when his security is suddenly shattered by the death of his father. The loss of the family breadwinner forces the MacNeills to leave their island home to make a life for themselves in the city.

On the streets of Belfast Colm and his brothers enjoy a different kind of freedom – childhood adventures that run late into the evening, games that last for days and friendly tussles make life in the city a new kind of liberation. This sense of freedom is, however, short-lived. As sectarian violence erupts in Belfast, the MacNeills become unavoidably caught up in the conflict and tensions around them …