SOURCE: "Brian Moore: The Realist's Progress," in English Studies in Canada, Vol. VII, No. 2, Summer, 1981, pp. 183-200.

An Excerpt from the Luck of Ginger Coffey

Not even able to enjoy a bit of music. Bloody females! He lay back, entering a world where no earthly women were. In that world soft houris moved, small women of a Japanese submissiveness, administering large doubles and sweet embraces in rooms filled with comfortable club sofas and beds. In that world, men of thirty-nine were Elder Brothers, prized over any Greek stripling. In that world, a man no longer spent his life running uphill, his hope in his mouth, his shins kicked by people with no faith in him. In that world, all men had reached the top of the hill; there were no dull jobs, no humiliating interviews, no turndowns; no man was saddled with girning wives and ungrateful daughters, there...