Sir, - I am probably not alone in finding puzzling Eileen Battersby's studious avoidance of any mention of Frank O'Connor in places where the omission could be described as deafening or as sending a message.
In her review of William Maxwell's work, for example, (December 12th) she expunges O'Connor from the list of the fine writers who were supported and promoted by Maxwell despite the long collaboration between O'Connor and Maxwell that led to O'Connor becoming, like Updike, the New Yorker's most published author. The record of that collaboration is set out in the correspondence between the two of them published in The Happiness of Getting It Down Right, a correspondence which shows the extent to which each of them respected and relied on the criticism of the other in developing and shaping his own work. They were also good friends.
The fact that O'Connor came out of poverty and was self-taught perhaps explains the less than warm welcome he got from the Anglo/Irish establishment, with the notable exception of Yeats and AE. However, it did not prevent him going on to teach at North-western, Harvard and Stanford where he had Larry McMurtry and Ken Kesey among his students. That reception and its reasons also may explain the fact that O'Connor is better known and respected in the US than in Ireland.
I somehow doubt that it is those origins and that history which lie behind Eileen Battersby's apparent wish to exclude O'Connor from the canon. It is perhaps time for her to set out her reasons for examination and discussion. - Yours, etc., Guy Robinson,
Sorrento Road, Dalkey, Co Dublin.
Eileen Battersby writes: There is absolutely no "studious avoidance" at work here - I didn't know about Frank O'Connor's collaboration with William Maxwell. However as I admire Maxwell and Frank O'Connor has been one of my all-time favourite writers since I was a child, and I'm always mentioning his work, I am delighted to discover this connection and must learn more about it.