The Lilliput Press has shown commendable commitment to keeping the work of the Athlone novelist John Broderick (1924-89) in print. In addition to the attractive editions of what are, in this reader's view, Broderick's best novels, The Pilgrimage (1961) and The Waking of Willie Ryan (1965), it has now added An Apology for Roses, which sold more than 30,000 copies in its first week of publication, in 1973.
In his foreword to the new edition the librarian and writer Gearóid O'Brien describes his first meeting with the notorious author of what was generally considered a "dirty book", in 1973. Instead of the aloof and abrasive writer he was expecting to encounter O'Brien found himself in the presence of a charming and sophisticated man of letters who conveyed such a passion for Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, a prescribed text for that year's Leaving Certificate, that the young student readily accepted the writer's offer to speak to his class on the subject.
Broderick's career was blighted by an addiction to alcohol and his homosexual leanings, which he found difficult to reconcile with his faith. He regularly reviewed books for The Irish Times and other journals, and he was most encouraging to aspiring young writers, providing useful introductions and writing positively about their work.
He noted that the French Nobel laureate François Mauriac was the only literary influence of which he was aware, and he was also a great admirer of Kate O’Brien. He was less complimentary about other writers, describing Edna O’Brien as a bargain-basement Molly Bloom and Seamus Heaney as a sort of Irish agricultural Rupert Brooke.
Broderick’s family owned a successful bakery in Athlone. This meant that, unlike many other writers, he had money to fall back on if his books did not sell. He could thus afford to be daring in his treatment of taboo subjects such as sex outside marriage, homosexuality, unbridled materialism, violence, and errant priests.
In An Apology for Roses Fr Tom Moran and Marie Fogarty, the only child of a wealthy midlands family, have a sexual relationship, carried out while her parents attend evening Mass. A handkerchief is placed over the statue of the Blessed Virgin in Marie's bedroom while the couple have "swift" and "direct" intercourse.
“A primitive phallic longing”
Although she finds their lovemaking unsatisfactory in the main, Marie puts up with it because “his large well endowed body excited her; a body perfectly fashioned for the intimacies which stirred her imagination, filling her with a primitive phallic longing”.
A number of Broderick’s female characters seem to have an insatiable appetite for sex, mostly outside of marriage. At times there is more than a tinge of misogyny in his portrayal of women. We read that, for Fr Tom Moran, women “were fit only for bed and breeding; and Marie having a smattering of education was more tiresome than most . . .”
Broderick’s fascination with clerics may be down to his own short-lived desire to become a priest. At one point he went to discuss the practicalities with the professor of English at Maynooth, Fr Peter Connolly, who did well to dissuade him from such a course of action: Broderick was far too forthright in his opinions to survive long as a priest.
He was conservative in his religious views and thought that the liturgical reforms of Vatican II were a disaster. Notwithstanding his reservations about the direction the church was headed, Broderick remained a committed Catholic and demonstrated a keen understanding of the difficulties associated with celibacy. For example, Tom Moran realised from an early stage that “complete celibacy was not possible” and that he could atone for his lapses by confessing his sins and having a firm purpose of amendment.
John Broderick is a writer who never shrank from providing what he considered a realistic depiction of Irish mores. He definitely had flashes of great insight, as is clear with a portrayal of Irish customs surrounding death: “All of them were aware from their own experience that a bereavement is like a stab in the flesh, which is open for a short painful moment, letting in the cold air of eternity, and then slowly, inexorably begins to heal. Life goes on, and it is twice as sweet at wakes, with their long history of orgies.”
Although this novel is far from the best of Broderick's writing, An Apology for Roses contains enough gems to make it a most interesting read.
Eamon Maher is director of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies at IT Tallaght; he he has written widely on the work of John Broderick
