Banville, John. “Big News from Small Worlds.” The New York Review of Books 40 (April 8, 1993): 22-24. In this extended review of McGahern’s The Collected Stories, fellow novelist Banville discusses a characteristic often criticized in the stories—their floating quality, resulting from the fact that they take place in no discernible place or time period.

Bradbury, Nicola. “High Ground.” In Re-reading the Short Story, edited by Clare Hanson. New York: Macmillan, 1989. Discusses “Parachutes” and “High Ground” as works that embody the short story’s technique of being both involved and objectively distant at once; briefly discusses the historical and geographical contexts of McGahern’s stories.

Brown, Terence. “John McGahern’s Nightlines: Tone, Technique, and Symbol.” In The Irish Short Story, edited by Patrick Rafroidi and Terence Brown. London: Colin, Smythe, 1979. Discusses McGahern’s use of the Irish storytelling mode; argues that he tries to exploit symbolist possibilities in physical properties without resorting to the traditional symbols of church and religion.

Brown, Terence. “Redeeming the Time: The Novels of John McGahern and John Banville.” In The British and Irish Novel Since 1960, edited by James Acheson. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. Discusses McGahern’s literary realism, which has allowed him to treat subjects that have always been taboo in Irish fiction; argues that in his novels the protagonist’s world is explored with such obsessiveness that it reminds the reader of the short story.

Cahalan, James M. “Female and Male Perspectives on Growing Up Irish in Edna O’Brien, John McGahern and Brian Moore.” Colby Quarterly 31 (March, 1995): 55-73. Focusing primarily on The Dark but providing a context for McGahern’s short stories, Cahalan discusses McGahern’s treatment of father-son relationships and the difficulty of trying to come of age in Ireland in the 1940’s

Quinn, Antoinette. “Varieties of Disenchantment: Narrative Technique in John McGahern’s Short Stories.” Journal of the Short Story in English 13 (Autumn, 1989): 77-89. Describes McGahern’s characters as obsessed with death but ill prepared for the infinite; says they are disappointed with the everyday, disillusioned by love, and in retreat from life.

Rogers, Lori. Feminine Nation: Performance, Gender, and Resistance in the Works of John McGahern and Neil Jordan. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1998. Looks at McGahern’s representation of women and of femaleness, a quality strongly associated with the personification of Ireland throughout its history.

Sampson, Denis. Outstaring Nature’s Eye: The Fiction of John McGahern. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1993. The most comprehensive treatment of McGahern’s work. It traces his artistic development and the growth of his reputation in Ireland and France, and it includes thorough bibliographies.

Whyte, James. History, Myth, and Ritual in the Fiction of John McGahern. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. Analyzes McGahern’s fiction in terms of the old standbys of Irish literature, myth, ritual, and history.