Madden, Deirdre

(British, 1960– )

Madden's novels are set in her native Northern Ireland, and deal with friendship, family, creativity, and loss, through the lives of her women characters. Her writing is elegantly simple and muted; begin with One by One in the Darkness (1996) which traces a week in the lives of three sisters just before the start of the 1994 IRA ceasefire, intercut with episodes from their childhood. It offers an honest, angry and affectionate account of life in Northern Ireland over the past thirty years. Nothing is Black (1994) focuses on three women at a defining moment in their lives, meeting at the Donegal house of solitary painter Claire. Remembering Light and Stone (1992) is set in Italy and Ireland, and deals with the heroine's attempts to come to terms with her past.

John McGahern, Glenn Patterson, Jennifer Johnston. See IRELAND  JR