A Deep Well of Want

«Paul Butler’s monograph is a wonderful illustration of how a visual reading of McGahern can reveal previously undiscovered aspects of the writer’s aesthetic approach. ‘The Deep Well of Want’ of the title is an expression that captures the pain and hurt at the core of the life journey of both writer and photographer. Paul’s exquisite photos allow us a special entry into ‘McGahern Land’, whose landscape and people nurtured the writer’s creative inspiration. This indispensable study will deepen McGahern readers’ understanding of what lies at the core of his artistic quest.»

(Eamon Maher, TU Dublin)

This book represents a unique visualisation of the world of Irish writer John McGahern through his words and the imagery of artist Paul Butler. Traumatic events in the lives of both McGahern and Butler shaped their paths, creating a want to write in McGahern and a want to create imagery in Butler. Butler explores the difficult and complex childhood that the two shared, and through a series of beautiful images that he himself has created in McGahern’s own part of Ireland, he draws parallels between them and, as Eamonn Wall says in his Preface, produces a rich and life-affirming appreciation of literature, art and imagery.