SOURCE: "Passage Through Limbo: Brian Moore's North American Novels," in Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, Vol. XIII, No. 1, 1970, pp. 5-18.

Foster is a Canadian critic and educator who has written extensively on Anglo-Irish literature. In the following essay, he examines the central characters in Moore's early novels who, after being expelled from their communities, attempt to gain admission into new social groups and struggle to maintain their identities.

Critics have persisted in forging similarities between Moore and his compatriot-in-exile, James Joyce. Jack Ludwig, for instance, saw Moore in 1962 as Joyce's heir in the genealogy of Irish fiction ["Brian Moore: Ireland's Loss, Canada's Novelist," Critique 5 (Spring-Summer 1962)]. Hallvard Dahlie, in a well-written and perceptive account of Moore's work, sees Joyce's progress from Dubliners to Ulysses reflected in Moore's own development from The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1955) to I Am Mary Dunne (1968) [Brian Moore: Studies in Canadian Literature (Toronto, 1969)]. He...