Goodbye Yeats and O'Neill

Goodbye Yeats and O¿Neill is a reading of one or two books recently written by the following major authors: Roddy Doyle, Colm Tóibín, John McGahern, William Trevor, Seamus Deane, Nuala O¿Faolain, Patrick McCabe, Colum McCann, Nick Laird, Gerry Adams, Claire Boylan, Frank McCourt, Tim O¿Brien, Michael Patrick MacDonald, Alice McDermott, Edward J. Delaney, Beth Lordan, William Kennedy, Thomas Kelly, and Mary Gordon. The study argues that farce has been a major mode of recent Irish and Irish-American fiction and memoir¿a primary indicator of the state of both Irish and Irish-American cultures in the early twenty-first century. Edward A. Hagan is Professor of Writing at Western Connecticut State University. He is the author of High Nonsensical Words: A Study of the Works of Standish James O¿Grady (Whitston, 1986). In addition to numerous journal articles, he has edited and introduced three volumes in the University College Dublin Classics of Irish History Series¿To the Leaders of Our Working People by Standish James O¿Grady (2002), Sun and Wind by Standish James O¿Grady (2004), and The Green Republic by W.R. MacDermott (2004).