Wonderful characters drive adventure story
A 1995 review of John B. Keane's Durango, the Kerry playwright's comic novel of a hill farmers' cattle drive, on its American release.
As printed in the Celtic Mirror, September 1995
What a fascinating glimpse of the Irish farming community prior to World War II has John B. Keane drawn for readers in “Durango,” a book released this month by Roberts Rinehart Publishers ($22.95).
The author, hailed in Ireland as a top fiction writer, has used his finely-honed humor as a scalpel to provide a deep insight into the culture and economics of this pivotal period in Ireland's rich history.
And the characters! They are so well delineated that readers get to “choose up sides” and root for the “good guys.”
Just a single, simple word - Durango - titles a seemingly simple 300-page story of a 30-odd mile cattle drive; yet as readers immerse themselves in the story, they have the chance to realize what a monumental undertaking it really was.
They will better understand the depressed economic conditions of the Irish hill farmers, and how the feudal town system conspired against them.
They will learn how dedicated to the common good a leader must be and see how much interdependence is required for true independence.
There is the chance to discover anew the meaning of co-existence and to rejoice in the triumph of this small band of ordinary men and women, each of whom is aware of his or her own unique contribution to their extraordinary success.
How refreshing is Keane's view of the family. The farmer respects and cherishes his wife and children, not by spoiling them, but by affording each his own role. Each draws his self-esteem from filling his own special niche.
Keane has included everything from clerics to leprechauns in his word painting.
This reviewer's greatest wish is that Keane might have included a few more punctuation marks. It would greatly help the flow of the reading, particularly for those just learning the joy of the printed word.
Keane is also the author of “Irish Stories for Christmas.” His play, “The Field” in 1991 was made into a film that starred John Hurt and Richard Harris.
A note on the author
Our reviewer met Durango as a new book, but it was not new in Ireland. Keane had published it there in 1992, and the Roberts Rinehart edition of 1995 brought it to American shelves three years later. The setting, a hill farmers' drive to market in the years before the Second World War, sits close to the ground Keane worked all his life: land, money, and the people who argue over both in small Kerry towns.
John Brendan Keane was born in Listowel, County Kerry, on 21 July 1928, the son of a national school teacher. He worked as a chemist's assistant at home, then spent 1951 to 1955 in England as a street sweeper and barman, living in Northampton and London. In 1955 he came back, married Mary O'Connor at Knocknagoshel, and bought a pub in Listowel. He kept it for the rest of his life, and by most accounts its customers fed his characters.
The plays came first. Sive opened in 1959. The Field followed in 1965 and Big Maggie in 1969. Through the 1970s he wrote the comic Letters series, from Letters of an Irish Parish Priest in 1972 to Letters of an Irish Publican in 1977, with Letters of a Matchmaker (1975) and Letters of a Country Postman (1977) in between.
Durango was a late book, written when Keane was in his sixties and already a fixture of Irish letters. Read beside the plays, it is lighter. Nobody dies over a field. The quarrel is about prices, debts and the men in town who set both, and the hill farmers win it by sticking together for thirty-odd miles of road. That is a happier ending than Keane usually allowed his characters, and the American reviewer here plainly enjoyed it.
The film mentioned at the end of the review is Jim Sheridan's version of The Field. A small correction for the record: it opened in Ireland on 21 September 1990 and in the United States on 21 December 1990, reaching British cinemas in February 1991. It was shot almost entirely in Leenaun in Connemara, and Richard Harris earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor as Bull McCabe. John Hurt, Tom Berenger, Sean Bean and Brenda Fricker filled out the cast.
Keane was also a builder of institutions. In 1970 he was among the Listowel people, with the writer and teacher Bryan MacMahon, who dreamed up Listowel Writers' Week. The first festival ran in 1971, and it remains the longest-running literary festival in Ireland. He served as president of Irish PEN, was a founder member of the Society of Irish Playwrights and a member of Aosdána, and stayed a lifelong Fine Gael man who never ducked an argument.
He died in Listowel on 30 May 2002, aged 73. A bronze statue of him now stands in the town.
The reviewer's complaint about punctuation is a fair one, and familiar to anyone who has read Keane in bulk. He wrote the way his customers talked. Some readers needed the commas. Most kept reading anyway.
Questions readers ask
What is John B. Keane's Durango about?
Durango, published in Ireland in 1992 and in the United States by Roberts Rinehart in 1995, follows a band of Kerry hill farmers on a cattle drive of about 30 miles to market in the years before the Second World War. Keane uses it to show how the town merchants squeezed small farmers, with plenty of comedy along the road.
Where was the film The Field shot?
Jim Sheridan's 1990 film of John B. Keane's play The Field was shot almost entirely in Leenaun, a village in Connemara, County Galway. The film is set in the early 1930s, opened in Ireland on 21 September 1990 and reached American cinemas on 21 December 1990.
Did Richard Harris get an Oscar nomination for The Field?
Richard Harris was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 63rd Academy Awards for playing Bull McCabe in The Field. The 1990 film, written and directed by Jim Sheridan from Keane's 1965 play, also starred John Hurt, Tom Berenger, Sean Bean and Brenda Fricker.
Did John B. Keane own a pub in Listowel?
After returning from several years of work in England, Keane became a publican in Listowel, County Kerry, in 1955 and ran the pub for the rest of his life. He wrote Letters of an Irish Publican in 1977, and patrons of the bar are said to have inspired some of his characters.
When did John B. Keane die?
John B. Keane died in his home town of Listowel on 30 May 2002, aged 73. He was born there on 21 July 1928. His best-known works include the plays Sive (1959), The Field (1965) and Big Maggie (1969), along with the comic Letters books of the 1970s.
