Memoirs, as a literary form, are exceedingly popular currently, covering a range of topics such as disease, loss, divorce, childhood, mental wellness, and much more. John McKenna’s most recent work fits well within these categories. While the central thread of the story is his own life, starting from his 1950s childhood, the overpowering theme is the impact of family. He discusses his relationships with his father, who died in 2000, and his brother, Jarlath, who passed away in 2012. Jarlath, a decade older than John, served as a critical figure in John’s life, despite being mostly absent throughout. John lived as a single child with his parents in the village of Castledermot, a place frequently mentioned in the Sunday Miscellany due to John’s evocative descriptions of his life there.
Although the Sunday Miscellany representation of Castledermot is charming and full of unexpected yet largely pleasant events, the tale in his memoir gives us a more sombre perspective. McKenna should be applauded for providing a vivid and stark account of his childhood, which was marred by his parents’ relentless quarrelling. Jarlath characterised them as being as different as “chalk and cheese”. Despite being decent parents in many respects, John concluded that they would have been better off separating.
Jarlath’s presence was the only time John felt at ease at home, and the memoir depicts the deep bond and love between the two brothers, a bond that stayed intact even with Jarlath’s demise. John still reminisces about him, dreams about him, and writes about him, dissecting the emotional past of their family. He does this without any bit of sentimentality, subtly illustrating a three-generation-long history of sorrow that has moulded his character.
The biography is skilfully crafted in a delicate manner, divided into concise segments that predominantly revolve around the Ghost Brother, yet occasionally focus on the Father and Son. It is remarkably sharp-minded, brutally honest, and profoundly moving. True to MacKenna’s style, a distinguished author, one can expect the writing to be humorous, poetic, preserved to perfection.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is known for her two iconic pieces of memoir, Twelve Thousand Days, published by Blackstaff in 2018, and Fáínne Geal an Lae, unveiled by Cló Iar Chonacht in 2023.