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Thomas Flanagan (1923-2002), the grandson of Irish immigrants, grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he ran the school newspaper with his friend Truman Capote. Flanagan attended Amherst College (with a two-year hiatus to serve in the Pacific Fleet) and earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University, where he studied under Lionel Trilling while also writing stories for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In 1959, he published an important scholarly work, The Irish Novelists, 1800 to 1850, and the next year he moved to Berkeley, where he was to teach English and Irish literature at the University of California for many years. In 1978 he took up a post at the State University of New York at Stonybrook, from which he retired in 1996. Flanagan and his wife Jean made annual trips to Ireland, where he struck up friendships with many writers, including Benedict Kiely and Seamus Heaney, whom he in turn helped bring to the United States. His intimate knowledge of Ireland's history and literature also helped to inspire his trilogy of historical novels, starting with The Year of the French (1979, winner of the National Critics' Circle award for fiction, reissued by NYRB Classics in 2004) and continuing with The Tenants of Time (1988) and The End of the Hunt (1994). Flanagan was a frequent contributor to many publications, including The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and The Kenyon Review.
The Tenants of Time
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(Digital original)
$10.99
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ISBN-13:
9781590179291
- Publisher: New York Review Books
- Publication date: 04/05/2016
- Series: The Thomas Flanagan Trilogy
- Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 824
- Sales rank: 246,863
- File size: 2 MB
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Volume 2 of Thomas Flanagan’s Irish History Trilogy
The second volume of Thomas Flanagan’s best-selling Irish-history trilogy (which begins with The Year of the French and closes with The End of the Hunt) is set at the turn of the twentieth century, though its action revisits the thrilling revolutionary period of nearly half a century earlier. It is 1904 and the young historian Patrick Prentiss is visiting rural Kilpeder to research the townspeople’s rebellion during the 1867 Fenian Rising. Drawn into the events of that turbulent year by the intimate narration of the survivors, Prentiss discovers the struggles of the Irish nationalist movement refracted in the lives of those who participated in the failed revolt and its aftermath.
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New York Times Books of the Century
...[A] masterly historical novel...of the world and time....a magnificent piece of fiction.
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Eagerly awaited by readers of The Year of the French, Flanagan's new novel is even more powerful and engrossing than its predecessor. Set during three pivotal decades of Irish history, the narrative focuses on four men who participate in the short-lived Rising of 1867 and the irrevocable effects on their lives of the battle of Clonbrony Wood. Ned Nolan returns from America to his hometown of Kilpeder to lead the uprising, programmed by the Irish Republican Brotherhoodthe Fenianswhose sacred oath is the motivating obsession of Ned's existence. He enlists the aid of three of Kilpeder's young men: schoolmaster Hugh MacMahon, Robert Delaney, a bright, ambitious shopkeeper's assistant, and Vincent Tully, charming wastrel son of the town's leading merchant. In the aftermath of the aborted rebellion, Ned hardens into a merciless terrorist. Bob becomes a solicitor, an MP in the party of Charles Stewart Parnell and the lover of the wife of the Earl of Ardmor, who ``owns'' Kilpeder and lives in an estate overlooking the town. Except for Hugh, who is one of the narrators of this moving story, tragedy stalks each of the veterans of Clonbrony Wood. Their intertwined life dramas are played out against the tragedy of Ireland's bloody attempts to shake the yoke of British rule. The novel beautifully integrates the lives of its fictional characters with a striking depiction of the historical circumstances that motivated rebellion against the Crown. Flanagan's portrayal of the texture of Irish society illuminates the roots of perennial conflict. He skillfully describes the rise of Charles Parnell and the success of the Land League campaign, Parnell's disgrace and the destruction of all his accomplishments while the ``damned bloody empire . . . settled back to watch the Irish tear ourselves to pieces.'' As in all tragedy, there is irony: of Irish informers betraying their compatriots; of Parnell's sudden fall just as home rule seems certain; of the way Bob Delaney's life mirrors that of his leader's. Written in musical prose and imbued with an elegiac strain, the novel also eulogizes the innocence, hope and idealism of youth, which, because ``we are all the tenants of Time,'' gives way to the disillusionment and bitter accommodations of one's maturer years. A fine fusion of solid historical and sociological insight with a shrewd, sensitive grasp of character, plus a steady sweep of dramatic momentum incorporating an affecting portrait of a doomed love affair, this is a book one does not want to put down. It is a significant literary achievement, as timely as today's headlines about violence in Ireland. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; BOMC featured alternate. (January 29)
Library Journal
Flanagan's The Year of the French was a popular, award-winning, and masterful account of the Irish uprising of 1798. This novel deals with the years between the failed Fenian uprising of 1867 and the death of Parnell late in 1891. Parnell and the Land League agitation of the 1880s had a revolutionary effect upon Irish history. Flanagan vividly shows how the personal histories of his many characters both created and were changed by the history of their times. The nature and meaning of history is one of the themes of this book, as is the way history is remembered and recorded. Flanagan has the mind of a philosophical historian, but also the talent of a gifted storyteller. A model of historical fiction. Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.