Issue # 36 / August 2003

By the Lake / Written by: John McGahern
Book Review

By: Bianca Badia

        For those seeking a quick but lively summer read, John McGahern's By the Lake is just the page-turner. This veteran author's latest installment is more than up to par, with fluid descriptions and a captivating plot laced with gossip and subtle romance. McGahern's characters, however, make for the most remarkable facet of his writing.

        Set in a nameless, lake-based Irish community two hours from Dublin, By the Lake tells of Joe Ruttledge's venture from London back to that community. Feeling detached in England, the well-established advertising executive decides to return to the familiar people and places of his youth. Joe goes from one extreme to the other, from the most urban of cities to the most rural of small towns. Some might say that this classic plot format is overused. However, McGahern makes it his own in some of his best work to date (rivaling only Amongst Women, an exceptional family drama).

        Joe's drastic change of scenery brings with it necessary adaptation. As a businessman in London, his decisions were made with the bigger picture in mind. As an extra set of hands on a farm, his routine consists of several small tasks. Resistance to the scrutiny of a gossip-ridden small town is arguably the most difficult adjustment Joe has to make.

        Big-hearted Jamesie makes for the worst gossipmonger and the best character, oddly enough, (he and wife Mary Murphy are neighbors and great friends of the Ruttledge family). Daily biking around the lake in search of usable news, Jamesie does not seem to mind having lived there for nearly two decades. Among the other complex characters is Joe's self-made uncle "the Shah," the resident womanizer John Quinn, and the thinly masked Bill Evans. With By the Lake's Gatsby-esque execution, we end up knowing Joe Ruttledge the least, given the remarkable stories of the locals.

        In the midst of the short but seldom-sweet books being pushed for summer reading, By the Lake is the only choice that will bring with it a poetic atmosphere, a moving plot, and a near perfect character study.




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