These reissues are especially topical in view of the excellent RTE documentary recently on the prolonged scandal and ill feeling - which followed the publication of the first novel, back in 1918. As the world, or at least all Ireland, knows by now, the satirical (some would say libellous) portrayal of the people of MacNamara's home village, Delvin in Co Westmeath, triggered off feuds and resentments which rankled for decades. Purely as a novel, however, the book is a period piece, told with a heavy hand and a generally flat style, and is barely readable today. The later, and more ambitious, work of fiction is much more interesting, since it rambles disconcertingly from real life to fantasy and back again, usually with a sense of deflation and anti climax. There is even a rapid tour of the Dublin literary scene, accompanied by some rather glum satire (verbal wit was not its author's strongest point). Traditionally Marcus Igoe has always been regarded as MacNamara's best book, and the blurb compares it, rather hopefully, with O'Brien, Nabokov and Banville. There is an afterword by Michael McDonnell.