"An erotic nightmare and classic of modern Irish literature.
Wealthy and devout, Michael and Julia Glynn are the envy of their neighbors and the model Irish Catholic couple, bearing Michael's increasingly painful and crippling arthritis with stoicism. In hope of a miracle, their priest suggests a family pilgrimage to Lourdes. Yet these pious holiday plans are thrown into doubt when anonymous, obscene letters begin to arrive, full of terrible accusations.
Banned in Ireland on its first publication in 1961, Broderick's debut arrived 'like an incendiary device' (Sunday Independent). The Pilgrimage anticipated the deep shifts that would soon turn the country's theocratic society upside down. It is a darkly comic, blasphemous, and sexually charged chamber drama laying bare the hypocrisies of a small Irish town 'as watchful as the jungle,' and teetering on the brink of catastrophe. In the words of Colm Tóibín, in his foreword to this edition, The Pilgrimage 'cleared a space in the jungle so that its wildness could be more easily seen.'
Contains mature themes."
"Willie Ryan returns to his home town in 'the great central plain of Ireland' after escaping from the asylum where he was committed, and unvisited, by his devout Catholic family for twenty-five years. The pretext for his incarceration was an attack on his sister-in-law; the real reason, an affair with a hedonistic young man who introduced him to art, literature and music.
In this exposé of the 'petty bourgeois snobbishness, hypocrisies and pretensions' of the 'little grocer's republic' of 1950s Ireland, nothing evil happens as long as it is not seen. Through Willie's piercing vision, we see the truth of his brother Michael's grief and remorse, his nephew Chris's fear of freedom, and the perceptiveness of asylum nurse Halloran. As Willie prepares for death, he agrees to a private family Mass, setting the stage for a confrontation with Father Mannix, one of those complicit in putting him away."
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