Brian Moore (novelist)
Encyclopedia
Brian Moore was a Northern Irish
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 novelist and screenwriter who emigrated to Canada and later lived in the United States. He was acclaimed for the descriptions in his novels of life in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 after the Second World War, in particular his explorations of the inter-communal divisions of The Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...

. He was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...

 in 1975 and the inaugural Sunday Express Book of the Year award in 1987, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. Moore also wrote screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

s and several of his books were made into films.

Biography

Moore was born and grew up in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

. His father was a surgeon and his mother was a nurse. He grew up with eight siblings in a large Roman Catholic family, but reportedly rejected that faith early in life. Some of his novels feature staunchly anti-doctrinaire and anti-clerical themes, and he in particular spoke strongly about the effect of the Church on life in Ireland. A recurring theme in his novels is the concept of the Catholic priesthood. On several occasions he explores the idea of a priest losing his faith. These works were criticized by his sister, a Roman Catholic nun.

He was a volunteer air raid warden during the bombing of Belfast by the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

. He also served as a civilian with the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 in North Africa, Italy and France. After the war ended he worked in Eastern Europe for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in 1943, it became part of the United Nations in 1945, was especially active in 1945 and 1946, and largely shut down...

. He emigrated to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in 1948, worked as a reporter for the Montreal Gazette, and became a Canadian citizen. While eventually making his primary residence in California, Moore continued to live part of each year in Canada up to his death. He taught creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...

 at UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

.

Moore lived in Canada from 1948 to 1958, and wrote his first novels there. His earliest novels were thrillers, published under his own name or using the pseudonyms Bernard Mara or Michael Bryan. Moore's first novel outside the genre, Judith Hearne
Judith Hearne
Judith Hearne , was regarded by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore as his first novel. The book was published in 1955, after Moore had left Ireland and was living in Canada...

, remains among his most highly regarded. The book was rejected by ten American publishers before being accepted by a British publisher. It was made into a film
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is a 1987 drama film made by Handmade Films Ltd. and United British Artists starring Maggie Smith and Bob Hoskins. It was directed by Jack Clayton and produced by Richard Johnson and Peter Nelson with George Harrison and Denis O'Brien as executive producers...

, with British actress Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...

 playing the lonely spinster
Spinster
A spinster, or old maid, is an older, childless woman who has never been married.For a woman to be identified as a spinster, age is critical...

 who is the book/film's title character.

Other novels by Moore were adapted for the screen, including Intent to Kill
Intent to Kill
Intent to Kill is a 1958 British thriller film directed by Jack Cardiff and starring Richard Todd, Betsy Drake and Herbert Lom. The film was based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Brian Moore...

, The Luck of Ginger Coffey
The Luck of Ginger Coffey
The Luck of Ginger Coffey is a 1964 film directed by Irvin Kershner. It was filmed in Montreal by Crawley Films. It is based on the Governor General's Award winning novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore.- Plot :...

, Catholics
Catholics (novel)
Catholics is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. It was first published in 1972, and was republished with an introduction by Robert Ellsberg and a series of study questions by Loyola Press in 2006....

, Black Robe
Black Robe (film)
Black Robe is a 1991 film directed by Bruce Beresford. The screenplay was written by Northern Irish-Canadian author Brian Moore, who adapted it from his novel of the same name....

, Cold Heaven
Cold Heaven (film)
Cold Heaven is a film, released in 1991, which was directed by Nicolas Roeg. The screenplay, by Allan Scott, is based on a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, which was published in 1983.-Plot:...

, and The Statement. He co-wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain
Torn Curtain
Torn Curtain is a 1966 American political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.-Plot:On a cruise ship en route to Copenhagen, Michael Armstrong , an esteemed American physicist and rocket scientist, is to attend a scientific conference...

, and wrote The Blood of Others
The Blood of Others (film)
The Blood of Others is a 1984 film directed by Claude Chabrol. It is based on the 1945 novel The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir. The film was originally made as a three hour television mini-series and then recut down 40 minutes for a theatrical release-Plot:In Nazi occupied France, Jean...

, based on the novel Le Sang des autres
The Blood of Others
The Blood of Others is a novel by the French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir first published in 1945 and depicting the lives of several characters in Paris leading up to and during the Second World War. The novel explores themes of freedom and responsibility.-Plot summary:In German-occupied...

 by Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...

.

Death

Brian Moore died in 1999 at his home in Malibu, California, aged 77, from pulmonary fibrosis
Pulmonary fibrosis
Pulmonary fibrosis is the formation or development of excess fibrous connective tissue in the lungs. It is also described as "scarring of the lung".-Symptoms:Symptoms of pulmonary fibrosis are mainly:...

. He had been working on a novel about the 19th-century French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...

.

Legacy

Moore has been the subject of two biographies, Brian Moore: The Chameleon Novelist (1998) by Denis Sampson and Brian Moore: A Biography (2002) by Patricia Craig. One of the first critical retrospectives of Moore's entire body of work can be found in Brian Moore and the Meaning of the Past (2007) by Patrick Hicks
Patrick Hicks
Patrick Hicks is an American poet, and Writer-in-Residence at Augustana College.-Life:He was raised in Stillwater, Minnesota. Much of his fiction takes place in Minnesota, but his poetry often discusses his experiences in Northern Ireland, Germany, and Spain. Hicks is a dual citizen of the United...

.

Information about the publishing of Moore's novel, Judith Hearne, and the break-up of his marriage can be found in Diana Athill
Diana Athill
Diana Athill OBE is a British literary editor, novelist and memoirist who worked with some of the most important writers of the 20th century.-Life and writings:...

's memoir, Stet (2000). Moore's archives, which includes unfilmed screenplays, drafts of various novels, working notes, a 42-volume journal (1957–1998), and his correspondence, are now at The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas.

Prizes and honours

  • 1960 Governor General's Award for Fiction (for The Luck of Ginger Coffey)
  • 1975 James Tait Black Memorial Prize For Fiction (for The Great Victorian Collection)
  • 1975 Governor General's Award for Fiction (for The Great Victorian Collection)
  • 1976 Nominee, Booker Prize (for The Doctor's Wife)
  • 1987 Nominee, Booker Prize (for The Colour of Blood)
  • 1987 Sunday Express Book of the Year (for The Colour of Blood)
  • 1990 Nominee, Booker Prize (for Lies of Silence)

Novels

  • Wreath for a Redhead (1951
    1951 in literature
    The year 1951 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*E. E. Cummings and Rachel Carson are awarded Guggenheim Fellowships.*Flannery O'Connor is diagnosed with lupus....

    ) (U.S. title: Sailor's Leave)
  • The Executioners (1951
    1951 in literature
    The year 1951 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*E. E. Cummings and Rachel Carson are awarded Guggenheim Fellowships.*Flannery O'Connor is diagnosed with lupus....

    )
  • French for Murder (1954
    1954 in literature
    The year 1954 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible, which will influence him greatly.*John Updike graduates from Harvard with a thesis on George Herbert....

    ) (as Bernard Mara)
  • A Bullet for My Lady (1955
    1955 in literature
    The year 1955 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*28 May - Philip Larkin makes a train journey from Hull to London which inspires his poem The Whitsun Weddings....

    ) (as Bernard Mara) http://www.mysteryfile.com/Kiss05.html#Mara
  • Judith Hearne
    Judith Hearne
    Judith Hearne , was regarded by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore as his first novel. The book was published in 1955, after Moore had left Ireland and was living in Canada...

     (1955
    1955 in literature
    The year 1955 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*28 May - Philip Larkin makes a train journey from Hull to London which inspires his poem The Whitsun Weddings....

    ) (reprinted as The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne)
  • This Gun for Gloria (1957
    1957 in literature
    The year 1957 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Lawrence Durrell publishes the first volume of The Alexandria Quartet. The final of the four volumes will be published in 1960....

    ) (as Bernard Mara)
  • Intent to Kill (1957
    1957 in literature
    The year 1957 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Lawrence Durrell publishes the first volume of The Alexandria Quartet. The final of the four volumes will be published in 1960....

    ) (as Michael Bryan)
  • The Feast of Lupercal
    The Feast of Lupercal
    The Feast of Lupercal is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. It was first published in the United States in 1957, by Boston publisher Little Brown and in the United Kingdom in 1958 by London publisher Andre Deutsch...

     (1957
    1957 in literature
    The year 1957 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Lawrence Durrell publishes the first volume of The Alexandria Quartet. The final of the four volumes will be published in 1960....

    ) (reprinted as A Moment of Love, Ger 1964: Saturnischer Tanz)
  • Murder in Majorca (1957
    1957 in literature
    The year 1957 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Lawrence Durrell publishes the first volume of The Alexandria Quartet. The final of the four volumes will be published in 1960....

    ) (as Michael Bryan)
  • The Luck of Ginger Coffey
    The Luck of Ginger Coffey (novel)
    The Luck of Ginger Coffey, a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, was published in 1960, in the United States by Atlantic Monthly and in the United Kingdom by Andre Deutsch. In Canada, it received a Governor General's Award. The book was made into a film, directed by Irvin Kershner,...

     (1960
    1960 in literature
    The year 1960 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*November 2 – Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case in the United Kingdom....

    )
  • An Answer from Limbo
    An Answer from Limbo
    An Answer from Limbo is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, published in 1962.-Plot:The central character in the book is Brendan Tierney, a young Irish writer living in New York with his American wife and their two children. Tierney is working on his first novel...

     (1962
    1962 in literature
    The year 1962 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 7 - In an article in the New York Times Book Review, Gore Vidal calls Evelyn Waugh "our time's first satirist."...

    )
  • The Emperor of Ice-Cream
    The Emperor of Ice-Cream (novel)
    The Emperor of Ice-Cream, published in 1965, is an coming-of-age novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. Set in Belfast in 1939, it tells the story of school-leaver Gavin Burke, who joins the ARP against the wishes of his Irish Catholic and anti-British father.The novel's title is...

     (1965
    1965 in literature
    The year 1965 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Lloyd Alexander - The Black Cauldron*J. G. Ballard - The Drought*Ray Bradbury - The Vintage Bradbury*John Brunner...

    )
  • I Am Mary Dunne
    I Am Mary Dunne
    I Am Mary Dunne is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore about one day in the life of a beautiful and well-to-do 31-year-old Canadian woman living in New York City with her third husband, a successful playwright...

     (1968
    1968 in literature
    The year 1968 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Dean R. Koontz's first novel, Star Quest is published....

    )
  • Fergus
    Fergus (novel)
    Fergus, a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, was published in 1970, in the United States by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.It tells the story of Fergus Fadden, an Irish-born writer living in California, who is haunted by ghosts from his past, including that of his father.-Quote:"Until...

     (1970
    1970 in literature
    The year 1970 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Deliverance by American poet James Dickey published...

    )
  • The Revolution Script
    The Revolution Script
    The Revolution Script is a fictionalised account by Northern Irish-Canadian novelist Brian Moore of the kidnapping by the Quebec Liberation Front of James Cross,the Senior British Trade Commissioner in Montreal on October 5, 1970 and the murder, a few days later, of Pierre Laporte, Minister of...

     (1971
    1971 in literature
    The year 1971 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Destiny Waltz by Gerda Charles wins the UK's first Whitbread Novel of the Year Award.-New books:*Hiroshi Aramata - Teito Monogatari...

    )
  • Catholics
    Catholics (novel)
    Catholics is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. It was first published in 1972, and was republished with an introduction by Robert Ellsberg and a series of study questions by Loyola Press in 2006....

     (1972
    1972 in literature
    The year 1972 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Fiction:*Richard Adams - Watership Down*Jorge Amado - Teresa Batista Cansada da Guerra *Martin Amis - The Rachel Papers...

    , Ger 1975: Katholiken)
  • The Great Victorian Collection
    The Great Victorian Collection
    The Great Victorian Collection, published in 1975, is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. Set in Carmel, California, it tells the story of a man who dreams that the empty parking lot he can see from his hotel window has been transformed by the arrival of a collection of priceless...

     (1975
    1975 in literature
    The year 1975 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* August 12 — with the 20-year time limit stipulated by Thomas Mann at his death having expired, sealed packets containing 32 of the author's notebooks were opened in Zurich, Switzerland.* Writing under the...

    ) Ger 1978: Die Große Viktorianische Sammlung)
  • The Doctor's Wife
    The Doctor's Wife (Brian Moore novel)
    The Doctor's Wife is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, published in 1976. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, it tells the story of Sheila Redden, a doctor's wife from Belfast, who takes an American lover eleven years her junior while in Paris. She then separates from both her...

     (1976
    1976 in literature
    The year 1976 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Saul Bellow won both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.-New books:*Kingsley Amis – The Alteration...

    )
  • The Mangan Inheritance
    The Mangan Inheritance
    The Mangan Inheritance, published in 1979, is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. Set in Ireland, it tells the story of a failed poet and cuckolded husband who discovers a daguerrotype of a bohemian Romantic Irish poet with the same surname–Mangan–and seeks out connections to his...

     (1979
    1979 in literature
    The year 1979 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*V.C...

    , Ger 1999: Mangans Vermächtnis)
  • The Temptation of Eileen Hughes
    The Temptation of Eileen Hughes
    The Temptation of Eileen Hughes, published in 1981, is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. It portrays a quiet young shop assistant from Northern Ireland and her relationship with her rich employers Bernard and Mona McAuley who take her on a trip to London.The New York Times,...

     (1981
    1981 in literature
    The year 1981 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction given for the first time...

    )
  • Cold Heaven
    Cold Heaven (novel)
    Cold Heaven is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, published in 1983.The plot concerns a lapsed Catholic, Marie Davenport, who is about to leave her husband Alex for her lover, Daniel, when Alex is apparently killed in a boating accident and then seems to have risen from the dead...

     (1983
    1983 in literature
    The year 1983 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Ironweed by William Kennedy is published.*Salvage for the Saint by Peter Bloxsom and John Kruse is published. This is the final book in a series of novels, novellas and short stories featuring the Leslie Charteris...

    )
  • Black Robe (1985
    1985 in literature
    The year 1985 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire*Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale*Jean M. Auel - The Mammoth Hunters*Iain Banks - Walking on Glass...

    , Ger 1987: Schwarzrock)
  • The Colour of Blood
    The Colour of Blood
    The Colour of Blood, published in 1987, is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore about a Cardinal in an unnamed East European country who finds himself caught in the middle of an escalating revolution. A political thriller, it won the Sunday Express Book of the Year prize in 1987...

     (1987
    1987 in literature
    The year 1987 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Wolfe was paid $5 million for the film rights to his novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the most ever earned by an author, at the time.-Fiction:...

    , Ger 1989: Die Farbe des Blutes)
  • Lies of Silence
    Lies of Silence
    Lies of Silence is a novel, written by Northern Irish/Canadian author Brian Moore and first published in 1990.The novel primarily focuses on the personal effects of The Troubles, a period of ethnic, religious and political conflict in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s to 1998...

     (1990
    1990 in literature
    The year 1990 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*J. K. Rowling gets the idea for Harry Potter while on a train ride from Manchester to London. She says "I was staring out the window, and the idea for Harry just came. He appeared in my mind's eye, very fully formed...

    )
  • No Other Life
    No Other Life
    No Other Life is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, published in 1993.The novel is set in the future, on the fictional Caribbean island of Ganae . The story is told by Father Paul Michel, a Canadian missionary to Ganae, as a letter to himself about the life he has led...

     (1993
    1993 in literature
    The year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times....

    )
  • The Statement
    The Statement (novel)
    The Statement is a thriller novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. Set in the south of France and Paris in the early 1990s, The Statement is the tale of Pierre Brossard, a former officer in the pro-Fascist militia which served Vichy France, and a murderer of Jews.-Plot summary:Now...

     (1995
    1995 in literature
    The year 1995 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea is opened by Jimmy Carter....

    , Ger 1997: Hetzjagd)
  • The Magician's Wife
    The Magician's Wife
    The Magician's Wife, published in 1997, was the last novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. Set in 1856, it tells the story of a famous French magician despatched to war-torn Algeria by Emperor Napoleon III...

     (1997
    1997 in literature
    The year 1997 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Clancy signs a book deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. , giving him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books . A second agreement gives him another US$25 million for a...

    )

Screenplays

  • The Luck of Ginger Coffey
    The Luck of Ginger Coffey
    The Luck of Ginger Coffey is a 1964 film directed by Irvin Kershner. It was filmed in Montreal by Crawley Films. It is based on the Governor General's Award winning novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore.- Plot :...

     (1964)
  • Torn Curtain
    Torn Curtain
    Torn Curtain is a 1966 American political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.-Plot:On a cruise ship en route to Copenhagen, Michael Armstrong , an esteemed American physicist and rocket scientist, is to attend a scientific conference...

     (1966)
  • Catholics
    Catholics (film)
    Catholics is a film, directed by Jack Gold and released in 1973. Based on the novel of the same name by Brian Moore, who also wrote the screenplay for the film, it stars Trevor Howard, Martin Sheen and Cyril Cusack....

     (1973)
  • The Blood of Others
    The Blood of Others (film)
    The Blood of Others is a 1984 film directed by Claude Chabrol. It is based on the 1945 novel The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir. The film was originally made as a three hour television mini-series and then recut down 40 minutes for a theatrical release-Plot:In Nazi occupied France, Jean...

     (1984)
  • Black Robe
    Black Robe (film)
    Black Robe is a 1991 film directed by Bruce Beresford. The screenplay was written by Northern Irish-Canadian author Brian Moore, who adapted it from his novel of the same name....

     (1991)

External links


See also

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