The way I see it is that all the ol' guff about being Irish is a kind of nonsense. I mean, I couldn't be anything else no matter what I tried to be. I couldn't be Chinese or Japanese.

The novel is set during his last day in the school. He was the Garda sergeant of the village. His father was also the sergeant and did marry a second time although not during his time as a policeman.

John McGahern (12 November 1934 – 30 March 2006) is regarded as one of the most important Irish writers of the latter half of the twentieth century.