Only Child

by Frank O'Connor

Book Overview

The story of Frank O'Connor is that of a shy child from a Cork slum who becomes aware that there is something beyond the confines of his life and the lives around him, something grander. And with resolve and labor, he makes his way toward it. From his childhood to the time of his release from imprisonment as a revolutionary, O 'Connor conveys the moral fortune and the tragic elements of life, that sparked his storytelling--a life he describes as a...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815604505
• ISBN13: 9780815604501
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: Syracuse University Publications in Continuin
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Thank god someone reissued this book

O'Connor is rightly famous mostly for his short stories, but his criticism - both The Lonely Voice and A Mirror In the Roadway - along with this volume of his memoirs, well, they're all just really good. I found this book in a library many years ago and there are a hundred scenes that still spring instantly to life, and sentences that are always going to be part of how I look at the world. He betrays his greatest talent in the fact that the book reads like a collection of wonderful chapters rather than a coherent whole, but each is filled with the spirit of a generous, funny, humane man, one of those rare authors that you wish you could hang out with. The people that assure that books keep getting read seem to be forgetting about O'Connor a little, but the pages they keep alive rarely seem to stay in the blood and brain like his do.