The New Yorker: Fiction · The New Yorker

Anne Enright Reads John McGahern

February 1, 2025·1 hr 8 min·5 clips

Anne Enright reveals how McGahern's banned novel exposed abusive truths that shattered Irish taboos.

Anne Enright begins with allegiance and resistance. When Treisman asks why she chose John McGahern, Enright calls him a great Irish writer and the Irish writer's Irish writer, the kind of writer people read with admiration, irritation, and a need to come back. Treisman does not crowd the room. She notes that Sierra Leone ran in The New Yorker in August 1977, sets it in McGahern's middle period, and gets out of the way. The story itself is tight, domestic, and pretty merciless. A father wants the narrator to take over good land, buy out old McGuinness, and use the town's need for an accountant. On paper, it is practical. In the room, it is a trap. Saying yes would cut Rose out while tying the narrator to Rose, the land, and the father's plans after death. Saying no turns the house colder. The father's charge is all blood and respect, and the ordinary family talk starts to sound like testimony. The narrator sees the damage clearly, which does not save anyone. He knows the family has no common language left. The story makes that feel more frightening than foreignness. Rose is part of the hurt too. When he tries to slip away, she calls him out for letting her father's ways go unanswered. The goodbye is almost empty. He imagines what he could ask, knows what she would say, and leaves without an answer. Dublin waits in silence. By the train's approach past Croke Park, every possible weekend has narrowed to the same ending. Treisman and Enright give just enough context, then let the story sting.

As heard by us

Anne Enright reads McGahern with cool precision, drawing out the bitterness behind inheritance, refusal, and family duty.

Anne Enright's reading of John McGahern's "Sierra Leone" finds the hurt inside a plainly spoken family bargain. Deborah Treisman introduces McGahern as a major Irish writer, and Enright's reason for choosing him is not neat reverence: she describes the mix of admiration,…

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