Life
1940- [pseud. ‘Vincent Lawrence’]; b. Wexford; br. of John Banville; ed. UCD;
taught in Nigeria for five years; works as literary journalist in Dublin;
freq. reviewer of children’s books in Irish
Times; first pseudonymous novel, An End to Flight (1973), follows
an Irish protagonist through Nigerian civil war; others published under
his own name incl. Death by Design (1993), and Death of the
Pale Rider (1995), both thrillers set in Dublin; Hennessy to the
Rescue (1995), for children; writes Paperback Crimefile reviews, for The Irish Times. DIL
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Works
Fiction, [as Vincent Lawrence,] An End to Flight (London:
Faber & Faber 1973), and Do. [rep edn] (Dublin: New Island Press 2002),
235pp.; [as Vincent Banville,] Death by Design (Dublin: Wolfhound
Press 1993), and Death of the Pale Rider (Dublin: Poolbeg 1995),
248pp. Children’s Fiction, Hennessy
to the Rescue (Dublin: Poolbeg 1995)
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Criticism
H. M. Buckley, ‘Thriller Minutes’, rev. of Death of the Pale Rider, Books Ireland (Dec. 1995), p.326.
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Commentary
Colm Tóibín, ‘Back to a dark Bafrian drama’, review of An End to Flight, in The Irish Times (21 Dec. 2002) [rep.
edn.]: novel set during the Biafran war; tells story of Irish expatriate
teacher Painter in remote school as war begins; ‘a relentlessly dark
book dramatising, Painter’s listless and lascivious self and his
profoundly anti-heroic stance as much any version of the war or the fate
of Biafra’; also ‘a heroic priest’; written with ‘enormous
skill’. Tóibínquotes: “[the war was] full of noise and fury
and high-flown proclamations of defeats and victories, but at the centre
it was hollow. It was a small, mean war, and the appearance and the sound
of the guns caused more destruction than the actual shells that they fired
[...] In the beginning, the dream of nationhood had hovered bright and
steadfast, and perhaps the leaders still believed in it, but now after
almost a year of the reality of war the people saw the dream for what
it had become [...]” Further remarks: Banville ‘create[s ...]
a sort of quest in an evil hour for the right terms and the right motives
to achieve salvation, or, more mundanely, survival. [...] The dialogue
is, by necessity, stilted and at times awkward. [...] The genuine power
of the novel comes from Banville’s skill at creating dramatic scenes,
some of them unforgettable in their tension. [... &c.]’
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