The Nowlans

"A powerful novel, The Nowlans is, for its period, surprisingly frank in its treatment of sexual frustration and the strains of clerical celibacy. In John Nowlan, Banim charts with great boldness and considerable psychological insight violent, sensual impulses, such as those which torment Hardy's Jude Fawley and Joyce's Stephen Dedalus. Through the harrowing personal struggles of "priest John", Banim illuminates the sectarian tensions of the Ireland of his day - an Ireland which saw the proselytising activities of the "New Reformation " in full swing, an Ireland where all that was solid and respectable was also Protestant and where the vast majority of the people were Catholics, struggling desperately to achieve some sort of civic identity for the first time since the inception of the penal laws. A compelling work, The Nowlans veers between tragic realism and heady melodrama. Torn between his love for Letty Adams and his duty to his clerical vocation, John Nowlan is one of the most memorable characters to be found in early nineteenth-century Irish fiction."

Available from:

amazon.com
amazon.co.uk

Other ordering methods