The fiercest urge was to break out of his life as it was.

For the last two months or so I have been reading book after book. As I wrote in a previous post, I suspect it has something to do with my needing some kind of outlet and books are filling that role as of late. I've always been an avid reader but the number of book I've read since October is surprising to me. I used to bounce around from book to book, three or four going at once, and would pick one depending on my mood that day. Lately, I'm focusing on one book at a time, reading until done and moving on to the next. A few weeks back, I was browsing through my favorite bookstore looking for something new. Tucked away on a shelf were a number of books by John McGahern, an author I'd not heard of. An Irish author. The last line of his bio stated that he lived in County Leitrim, where my family comes from, so now I had to read him. I selected one of his earliest novels, The Dark, a coming-of-age story. I loved it. I've gone nuts for McGahern's work. I've been buying up any book of his I could find and flying through them. I was talking to a guy from Co. Carlow, Ireland at a recent holiday party and we got on the subject of McGahern, practically jumping up and down with enthusiasm (well, I may have been doing most of the jumping due to the plentiful holiday cheer). He recommended reading his autobiography, Memoir, lamely retitled for American readers All Will Be Well, and his novel Amongst Women, widely considered his masterpiece. I read the novel immediately. It's amazing. Just brilliant - a word I sadly overuse but for this book it's so fitting. It may have become my favorite novel. I was swept up into it, instantly involved. The characters feel like members of your family (or you recognize yourself in all of them) and you're pulled along the ups and downs of the narrative through to its emotional resolution.

John Updike said of McGahern's work, "McGahern brings us the tonic gift of the best fiction, the sense of truth - the sense of transparency that permits us to see imaginary lives more clearly than we see our own." There is a wonderful simplicity to his writing, a spareness of prose and an unflinching honesty in his work, without a whiff of sentimentality or artifice. His characters lead seemingly modest lives yet are incredibly complex and full of conflict and contradiction. They yearn to break free from their ordinary existence and often find that family, the church or they themselves stand in their way. Some make it and others find that though they may desperately try to change, it oftentimes remains just beyond their reach and they eventually slide, slow and resigned, back to their everyday lives.

A few weeks ago I was out with a good friend and we were preaching from the barstool pulpit about life (maybe it was just me, because I seemed to be doing most of the yammerin'). I talked about my wanting, my needing, to find a new direction. There were some things I had done in an effort to gain some control of my discontentment, hoping that would spark a wave of change. Well, I think it's happening in increments. Nothing ever goes as fast as we'd like. I'm still taking some hits for my actions. Nobody likes an agitator. There is a lot that's cloudy, a lot that's uncomfortable and a lot that I'm unsure of. But I'm still in it, still wrestling. I said to my friend that night that though I'm frustrated and confused, I do feel change coming on and it feels big. The only thing in my way is myself. And there are days that I'm pretty sure I can take 'im ...