Country Girl: A Memoir

by Edna O'Brien

  Acknowledgments

  I was reluctant to write a memoir, but my agent, Ed Victor, was greatly enthusiastic and eventually managed to persuade me that I should do it. I mistakenly believed that it was going to be an easy journey. Andrew O’Hagan brought me to the house of Faber and the introduction to my editor, Lee Brackstone, who, with my American editor, Pat Strachan, ingeniously helped and encouraged me throughout. Help came from many and often unexpected quarters, including Sister Reparata, Ian McKellen, Louise Hardy, Graca Marquez, Nadia Proudian, Monique Henry, Carrie-Anne Brackstone, Emma Couper, Mary Morris, David McKittrick, John Horgan, Albert Kelly, Patsy McGarry, Des Lally, Patrick O’Flaherty, Dorothy Cross, and Roxy Beaujolais. While writing it, I read numerous memoirs, and the ones that spring to mind now are Childhood, Boyhood, Youth by Tolstoy; Moments of Being by Virginia Woolf; Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov; Germs by Richard Wollheim; Patrimony by Philip Roth; Chronicles by Bob Dylan; Father & I by Carlo Gébler; Memoirs from Beyond the Grave by Chateaubriand; Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick; John Charles McQuaid by John Cooney; Remembering How We Stood by John Ryan; Head or Harp by Lionel Fleming; The Best of Patrick Campbell, edited by Ulick O’Connor; Downstart by Brian Inglis; The Magic Lantern by Ingmar Bergman; Making Sense of the Troubles by David McKittrick; Letters Home by Sylvia Plath; A Self-Portrait in Letters by Anne Sexton; Conversations with Elizabeth Bishop, edited by George Monteiro; A Memoir by John McGahern; Stepping Stones—Interviews with Seamus Heaney by Dennis O’Driscoll; and Bowen’s Court by Elizabeth Bowen. I fear that in the years of immersion I have forgotten some of the people and some of the books that were an inspiration to me. I should also add that the dramatis personae of my childhood provided the richest material of all, and so I owe a huge thanks both to the living and the dead.

  About the Author

  EDNA O’BRIEN, author of The Country Girls Trilogy, A Fanatic Heart, The Light of Evening, Saints and Sinners, and other widely acclaimed books, is a recipient of the Ulysses Medal, the 2011 Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Arts Club Gold Medal, and the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, and is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Country Girl received the Argosy Irish Nonfiction Book of the Year from the Irish Book Awards. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, O’Brien has lived in London for many years.

  Also by Edna O’Brien

  FICTION

  The Country Girls

  The Lonely Girl

  Girls in Their Married Bliss

  August Is a Wicked Month

  Casualties of Peace

  The Love Object and Other Stories

  A Pagan Place

  Zee and Co.

  Night

  A Scandalous Woman and Other Stories

  A Rose in the Heart

  Returning

  A Fanatic Heart

  The High Road

  Lantern Slides

  House of Splendid Isolation

  Down by the River

  Wild Decembers

  In the Forest

  The Light of the Evening

  Saints and Sinners

  NONFICTION

  Mother Ireland

  James Joyce (biography)

  Byron in Love

  DRAMA

  A Pagan Place

  Virginia (The Life of Virginia Woolf)

  Family Butchers

  Triptych

  Haunted

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  Copyright Acknowledgments

  Here: “Aodh Ruadh î Domhnaill” (“ ‘Red’ Hugh O’Donnell”), by Thomas MacGreevy, copyright © The Estate of Thomas McGreevy, courtesy of Margaret Farrington and Robert Ryan.

  Here: Extract from Autobiographies I: I Knock at the Door and Pictures in the Hallway, by Sean O’Casey, reproduced by permission of the Estate of Sean O’Casey, represented by Macnaughton Lord Representation.

  “Brush Those Tears from Your Eyes,” words and music by Oakley Haldeman, Leland Gillette & Albert Trace, © copyright 1948 Leeds Music Corp. Universal/MCA Music Limited. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission of Music Sales Ltd.

  Here: “Canal Bank Walk,” by Patrick Kavanagh, © The Trustees of the Estate of the late Katherine B. Kavanagh, through the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency. Reproduced from Collected Poems, edited by Antoinette Quinn (Allen Lane, 2004). By kind permission.

  Here: Vom Armen B.B (About Poor B.B), by Bertolt Brecht, from Hauspostille, reproduced by permission of Surhkamp Verlag, Berlin. © Bertolt Brecht 1927. Translation from Bertolt Brecht: Poetry and Prose, edited by Reinhold Grimm with Caroline Molina y Vedia, printed with permission from the Continuum International Publishing Company. Michael Hamburger © 2003.

  “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?,” written by Bob Merrill, © 1952 Golden Bell Songs.

  Here: Extract from The Culture of the Abdomen, by F. A. Hornibrook, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd. © copyright F. A. Hornibrook, 1925.

  Lyrics of “Those Were the Days,” © Gene Raskin 1962.

  Here: Lyrics of “All Right Now,” by Andy Fraser and Paul Rodgers, © Blue Mountain Music.

  Here: Lyrics of “Witchcraft,” by Carolyn Leigh, © MPL Music Publishing Inc.

  Illustration Credits

  Private collection

  Private collection

  © Faber and Faber Ltd.

  “Dublin Culture,” © Alan Reeve (as published in the Irish Times, 1940), by kind permission of the Lilliput Press, Dublin

  Private collection

  Private collection

  Private collection

  Private collection

  Private collection

  Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.

  © Sam Shaw

  Courtesy of Country Life

  Snowdon, Camera Press London

  © Getty Images

  © John Minihan

  Private collection

  Courtesy Kennys Bookshop, Galway city

  © Dorothy Cross

  Private collection

  © Joanne O’Brien

  Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers would be pleased to rectify any omissions or errors brought to their notice at the earliest opportunity.

  Contents

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Ghosts

  Abdullah

  The Dining Room

  Visitors

  Classroom

  Carnero

  Summer Holiday

  Books

  Brides of Christ

  PART TWO

  Big Time

  The Literary Bessie Bunter

  The Doll’s House

  Custody

  Nocturnes

  The Sleeve of Saskia

  Chelsea

  PART THREE

  The Blank Page

  The North

  New York, New York

  PART FOUR

  Donegal

  The Night of Time

  Wild Horses

  Banquet

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Edna O’Brien

  Copyright Acknowledgments

  Illustration Credits

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2012 by Edna O’Brien

  Cover design by Kapo Ng

  Cover photograph by Horst Tappe/Contributor/Getty Images

  Cover copyright © 2013 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First ebook edition: April 2013

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  ISBN 978-0-316-23036-0