Irish author John McGahem dead at 71

Photo: John McGahern passed away Thursday after a battle with cancer.

John McGahern, the writer known for semi-autobiographical portraits of rural life and widely praised as one of Ireland's great modern novelists, died of cancer Thursday, his family and friends said. He was 71. McGahern published six novels, four collections of short stories and, last year, his nonfiction Memoir. All reflected his upbringing in County Roscommon: a world dominated by grief for his mother, who died of cancer when he was 8, and by the Roman Catholic Church and his father, a police sergeant who savagely beat the boy and his five sisters. McGahern's second novel, The Dark, a coming-of-age story published in 1965, was banned in Ireland and denounced from the pulpit as pornographic. McGahern was forced to quit his teaching job in a Catholic high school and left Ireland. He resettled near his childhood home five years later and wrote his two most celebrated works, Amongst Women — nominated for Britain's Booker Prize in 1990 — and That They May Face the Rising Sun in 2002. McGahern died in a Dublin hospital. It was not announced what kind of cancer he had or how long he had been sick. "John was one of Ireland's finest writers ever," Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said. "His beautiful use of language in telling and retelling the stories of his time and place are the enduring testimony of his life and his talent." And Irish President Mary McAleese said McGahern made "an enormous contribution to our self-understanding as a people." John Banville, another of Ireland's most respected authors, praised McGahern's wit and power of observation — and rued the fact his work had not received much recognition outside the country. "Amongst Women, which was his masterpiece — if there was any justice at all, it should have won the Booker Prize. It would have given him the international recognition that he didn't have," Banville said. "The literary world we live in now is so glittery. His novels were so quiet, perhaps they didn't travel well. But they will." McGahern's trademarks included a loving attention to the detail of Ireland's rural life: its plants and animals, its textures and smells — and the witty idiom and darker insular dynamics of its people. His final novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun, charted the social and seasonal changes in a border farming community without relying on conventional dramatic hooks — or even much plot.

 In an interview last year, McGahern said he had attempted "to take plot and everything else out of the novel and see what was left."

 "In fiction, the most powerful weapon the writer has is suggestion. I think that nearly all good writing is suggestion, and all bad writing is statement. Statement kills off the reader's imagination. With suggestion, the reader takes up from where the writer leaves off," he told The Guardian newspaper. While he wrote for a few hours each day, McGahern remained a part-time farmer, and shunned the limelight. When Ireland's censorship board banned The Dark, he barely commented on the matter and expressed no bitterness. "For me, all that matters is whether a book is well written or not. Once a book is published, the less a writer has to say about it the better," he said. "That's why I never protested the banning. I thought it was a joke, the censorship board, and by protesting I would give them too much honor. Besides, a book has a life of its own. Once it is written, it belongs to its readers." McGahern was survived by his wife Madeline, an American photographer, and his sisters. Funeral arrangements were not announced.

Michael Schiavo chronicles his struggle to end his wife's life in a new book.

Photo: Author Michael Schiavo.

Michael Schiavo had decided at the last minute to give up his fight to remove his brain-damaged wife's feeding tube, but his attorney persuaded him not to, Schiavo says in a new book. Schiavo had been hounded by protesters and received death threats, he says in Terri: The Truth, which was released Monday. And his longtime fiancee was worried about the safety of the couple's two children. But attorney George Felos "reminded me that we had to realize that it wasn't just about Terri anymore," Schiavo wrote. "It was about the rest of the people who didn't want the government telling us how we could die and when we were allowed to decide that we didn't want further medical treatment. "And it was about who has the right to make decisions between a husband and wife." Michael Schiavo fought Terri Schiavo's parents in court for eight years over removal of his spouse's life support, arguing she would not have wanted to be kept alive in what most doctors called a persistent vegetative state. Her parents insisted she retained some level of consciousness. Terri Schiavo's died in her husband's arms on March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube was removed. The bitter end-of-life battle reached Gov. Jeb Bush, the Supreme Court, Congress, the White House and even the Vatican. In an interview on Tuesday, Schiavo said it did not take much for Felos to persuade him to continue the case. "It was bigger than I ever dreamed it would become," he said. "But my parents raised me to be a fighter and go out and do what I believe in. And I was there to do what Terri wanted, and I wasn't going to give it up." The 360-page book, written with author Michael Hirsh, chronicles Terri and Michael Schiavo's lives together before and after she collapsed in 1990 and entered a nursing home. Terri Schiavo's brother took a dim view of the book. "By defaming our family, Michael Schiavo is somehow trying to vindicate himself and justify what he did to Terri," Bobby Schindler said. "Unfortunately, nothing he says will change the fact that because of his selfish actions Terri is no longer with us. His book does not honor Terri or her life."

Schiavo's former in-laws, Robert and Mary Schindler, have written their own book about the case. It was released Tuesday, and its contents were widely reported in recent weeks.

The Schindlers planned to respond further to Schiavo's book at a news conference Thursday in Washington.

Filmmaker Michael Moore: A Biography

Photo: Michael Moore.

In penning what she calls the first-ever biography of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, Toronto-based writer Emily Schultz says she wanted to offer "an ordered view" of a man for whom there seems to be no middle ground: people either love him or hate him. While the book does appear to struggle mightily to be fair, the reader is left with an image of Moore as someone who bends the rules, often unfairly, and who allows his own ego to intrude and nearly overshadow his messages. "Moore works best as a polemicist, not a journalist," Schultz concludes. She notes that while he never claims to be a journalist directly, he does so indirectly when he argues that if journalists were doing their jobs, he wouldn't have to do what he does in such exposes as Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore is depicted as a bullying boss (his job as editor of the leftist magazine Mother Jones ended early because of personality conflicts with the staff) and a self-aggrandizing filmmaker (although film distributors insisted fans wanted more of Michael Moore on camera). Schultz also takes issue with timeline issues resulting from film editing. For example, in Bowling for Columbine, did he really walk into a Michigan bank to open an account and walk out with a free gun in the short time the film suggests? Again, if he isn't technically a journalist, how much does he have to adhere to journalism's rules? Should he have been more upfront about the fact the scathing Iraqi war footage in 9/11 came from other filmmakers? And were the Oscars the proper place to unleash his shame-on-you-George-Bush tirade? The most lingering question, though, is: How long can he perpetuate that image of the scruffy, blue-collar, ballcap-wearing ordinary Joe from Flint? In the end, while many of Moore's creative and personality flaws are delineated, it is still up to the reader to decide whether they are to be forgiven in exchange for the deliciously scathing indictments of American society and politics that Moore has not only chronicled but presented with such humour and wit. -By J. MacCay.