SOURCE: “Irishmen at the Front,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4722, October 1, 1993, p. 18.

In the following review, Jeffery compares the stage adaptation of How Many Miles to Babylon? to the original novel.

Twenty years after its publication as a short and elegantly crafted novel, Jennifer Johnston has herself adapted How Many Miles to Babylon? for the stage. The story concerns the relationship of two Irish boys, Alexander Moore, the son of an Ascendancy Big House, and Jerry Crowe, a peasant stable lad, as it develops and as they both enlist in the British army at the beginning of the First World War. The contrasts between the two: rich and poor; Protestant and Catholic; officer and private soldier, together with the growing depth of their friendship, provide the author with ample opportunities to reflect on the differing and often conflicting demands of private and public loyalties.

The rise of Irish...