IN GUILT AND IN GLORY

by David Hanly ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 15, 1978

Hanly's ambitious novel is clearly determined to set you straight on everything you ever wanted to know concerning modern Ireland but were always asking the wrong people about. To this end, he stages a tour for an American ""NBS""-TV film crew doing a special and puts the newsmen in the care of a diffident but thoughtful young government P.R. man and a crusty old Dublin novelist. Between the two, the author has his say, going after every cliche the emerald isle has gotten itself associated with. Especially nettling to Hanly is the IRA-romanticism of professional Irish-Americans, here painted billboard-large in the person of Frank Dineen, a New York columnist. Dineen, in his cozy penchant for myth, would have the Irish either kill themselves off in the spirit of the boys of '16 or go back to the peat fires of poverty--just as long as they stay pure. Saucing up the action is the beautiful, sexy black anchor-woman, the homosexual cameraman, the drinking, merrying, and mating of the whole gang as they go around the island to the sound of HarRy's mouthpiece lectures. Despite its unnaturally deliberate use of indigenous phrase--""po-faced,"" ""louche,"" ""slurry""--this is basically pop journalism in the over-large robe of fiction. But its pointed grouchiness gives flavor, and Hanly surely isn't one to shift and stutter about his very definite opinions.

Pub Date: Feb. 15, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1978

Categories: FICTION