November 1997
CAS Honors Program at Milestone
Bernard McLaverty, the Northern Irish author of the novels Lamb, Cal -- and most recently Grace Notes -- began his reading on October 20 by commenting that the only thing that has changed since he was here for a reading in 1986, is that he now needs to use glasses.
Well, that's not the only thing. Since his 1986 visit, he moved from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Glasgow, Scotland, and published several volumes of short stories before Grace Notes in 1997. And there is one other thing -- McLaverty was nominated for Great Britain's most prestigious book award -- the Booker Prize -- for Grace Notes.
Grace Notes is about the emotional and creative journey of composer Catherine McKenna, as she gives birth to her first child, and composes her first major musical symphony. McLaverty has made her journey replete with questions of identity, family ties, loss of faith, and the spiritual transcendence of music, set in part against a backdrop of the conflict in Northern Ireland.
"Catherine is someone who doesn't believe in God or religion, but believes deeply in the ornamentation, or creative artwork that is inspired by religion," says McLaverty. "I wanted to explore loss of faith, or the gaining of a lack of superstition, as well as hurdles to creativity," says McLaverty.
McLaverty comments that there may be a "faint layer of hope that has not been in his previous work" in Grace Notes, which was begun during Northern Ireland's first ceasefire, but he points out that hopes have plummeted since then, and risen again.
McLaverty's reading on campus is due to his long association with Prof. Tom O'Grady of the English department, who hosted McLaverty's 1986 visit to UMass Boston. Grace Notes is published in the United States by W.W. Norton.