The Mangan Inheritance (New York Review Books Classics) - Softcover

"The Mangan Inheritance is a gift. A fine novelistic legacy. So much so that most readers will resent the last page and greedily (but oh so justifiably) demand more Moore."
--Robert Gish, The Chicago Tribune

"What amazes about Brian Moore is the consistency of excellent that runs like a rich vein of gold through all his novels. The Mangan Inheritance is both scary and erotic, a primitive and visceral tour de force about the imperfections of blood and birthright.--John Gregory Dunne

"A search for roots in an Ireland without malarkey which evnds with a Grand Guignol revelation. A master work by a consummate storyteller at the top of his form."--Josh Greenfield

"The Mangan Inheritance is a wonderful fictional antidote to the present craving for roots, and at the same time a sardonic and witty and winning novel in the powerful Moore tradition."--Richard Ellmann

"Another strange and wonderful fantasy from Brian Moore.... Life, as all ironists know, is not just what one might have expected. Dreams and mystery as well as irony are prominent qualities of Brian Moore's fiction."--Margaret Manning, The Boston Globe

"Brian Moore's reputation as a supremely entertaining 'serious' writer is secure."--Joyce Carol Oates

James Mangan is adrift. He has lived in the shadow of his brilliant movie-star wife for years and now she has finally dispensed with him. Then he comes across an old daguerreotype of a man bearing a remarkable resemblance to him. Is it in fact a photograph of the great 19th-century Irish poet James Clarence Mangan, rumored to be Jamie's direct ancestor? Off to Ireland he goes, determined to discover his roots and to locate himself. What he finds is scarcely the heartwarming affirmation of identity he yearns for. On the contrary, the remaining members of the Mangan clan-its derelict matriarch Eileen, her drunken dwarf of a son Conor, oversexed teenage daughter, Kathleen, and the reticent and vaguely hostile Dinny-are haunted by a strange and dark family history.Three-times shortlisted for the Booker prize, Brian Moore was an unparalleled spinner of captivating tales. This novel, vividly set in such disparate locations as New York City, Montreal, and rural Ireland, sweeps the reader into a story of literary suspense about the hidden legacies that shape our lives.