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Book Review of By the Lake

By the Lake
By the Lake
Author: John McGahern
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
reviewed on + 6 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4


This story was like a beautiful watercolor of the pastoral of Irish country living in 1916. It is a deceptively simple telling of comings and goings of characters over a year in a small farming community that appears barely to be touched by time. There neighbors and friends meet to converse, criticize and gossip; share the trouble and triumphs and tasks of ordinary lives and social occasions. Through the unfolding of personalities as its characters engage in seasonal activities and intertwined social obligations it becomes a tale of transformation. Even in a wild Irish county side, nothing remains as it was.