O'Brien, Edna

(Irish, 1932– )

O'Brien was born in a small village in Co. Clare. After marriage and the birth of two sons she moved to her current home of London, where she began writing and got divorced. Begin with The Country Girls (1960), for the film of which O'Brien later wrote the screenplay. Though drawing on the poverty and narrowness of her Catholic upbringing, it is a witty and exuberant read. The story of its contrasting heroines is continued in The Lonely Girl (1962), which changed its title to The Girl with Green Eyes for the film version. The third novel in this famous trilogy is the ironically entitled Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964), which deals with the typical O'Brien subject of problems, passions, and infidelities between the sexes. O'Brien is an accomplished short-story writer, and her volume Lantern Slides (1990), like later novels such as The High Road (1988), is stylish, experimental, and keen-eyed.

Clare Boylan, Shena Mackay, Jennifer Johnston. See IRELAND  JN