A couple of months ago, I came across a Youtube short from Booktuber, Jack Edwards, asking Cillian Murphy and Max Porter for their book recommendations (the short has since gone viral!). That short was packed with some great suggestions (like Claire Keegan) and I’ve really come to enjoy Edwards’ coverage of famous people’s reading habits (a niche I didn’t know I needed)! Murphy recommended John McGahern and featured on the short was Amongst Women. I’d been looking for a short-ish read to start 2026 off with and this book’s blurb called me.
Michael Moran is a former Irish Republic Army veteran, a father, and a husband. He is also a roiling sea of care, bitterness, anger, and entitlement, all empowering him to drink his own kool-aid. His three girls and second wife, Rose, vacillate between affection and fear. His two boys are in the background; the oldest abroad having mostly cut himself off from Moran and the youngest who is quiet, practically invisible, blooms under the attention of his sisters and step-mother. Moran makes absolutely bad decisions sometimes but nobody will tell him that nor will he acknowledge it himself. It’s others who are to blame, for Moran can then justify his own bitterness and anger.
There is just something so compelling about reading stories on everyday people living their lives, with all the undercurrents slowly being revealed to the reader. McGahern is really good at writing the emotional depths of the women in Moran’s life. There are just so many different types of women in this book! The daughters’ deep reverence for their father, the joy they experience amongst themselves, and the way they are prideful about holding onto the idea of family even when at the center of it is this very flawed and selfish man, all feels so real. We know women like this! I even felt for Moran on more than one occasion. The characters make imperfect and often contradictory decisions, some stay stagnant while others walk unexpected paths. A great book, like Amongst Women, makes all these decisions feel known. The choices might be ones we ourselves have made before. We’ve been the ones who overlooked and painted over the darker sides of people we’ve loved. In Amongst Women, you see the characters’ core but also their humanity.
Moran could not have been more charming during the whole weekend. He did not need to be very charming. They had learned to accept him in all his humours: they were grateful for anything short of his worst moods, inordinately grateful for the slightest goodwill, what they barely would have accepted from an equal. – John McGahern
Unexpectedly, another author who writes about everyday people came to mind as I read this book – Richard Yates (I love many of his books). Where Yates often leans more melancholic and distant amusement, McGahern approach is warmer because his love for these characters, even Moran, really shines through. Most all characters and settings gets some attention and depth under McGahern’s watch, whether it’s the two ladies working at the local post office, a childhood sweetheart of Moran’s son, or, his daughter’s mother-in-law who appears for all of three pages.
It’s a book bursting and full in its character- and world-building that it’s hard to believe it was only 184 pages! I cannot recommend this book enough – 5/5, A+, S-tier read, recommended by Cillian Murphy! A great way to start the new year and my first Cannonball review ever! 🙂
