Valley of the Squinting Windows is a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Brinsley MacNamara

Brinsley MacNamara

Brinsley MacNamara was an Irish writer.Born as John Weldon near Delvin, County Westmeath, he worked for the Abbey Theatre from 1909, and later as the registrar of the National Gallery of Ireland....

 (born John Weldon), set in the fictional village of "Garradrimna", County Westmeath

County Westmeath

-Economy:Westmeath has a strong agricultural economy. Initially, development occurred around the major market centres of Mullingar, Moate, and Kinnegad. Athlone developed due to its military significance, and its strategic location on the main Dublin–Galway route across the River Shannon. Mullingar...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. The book was originally published under another pseudonym, Oliver Blyth.

While McNamara insisted that Garradrimna could represent any village in Ireland, geographical landmarks mentioned in the book suggest that Garradrimna corresponds to the actual town of Delvin

Delvin

Delvin is a small town in east County Westmeath, Ireland located on the N52 road at a junction with the N51 to Navan. The town is from Mullingar and is the setting of the book Valley of the Squinting Windows by Delvin native Brinsley MacNamara, described under the fictitious name of "Garradrimna"...

, to which the book does not refer by name.

Plot

The novel would have been unremarkable except for its tale of Irish life when published in 1918, the immediate scandal, and the ensuing ramifications.

It told a story of rural life, the power of gossip

Gossip

Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...

, public perception which people attempted to present of the family

Family

In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...

 and individual

Individual

An individual is a person or any specific object or thing in a collection. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires. Being self expressive...

, and of an inward-looking society, similar to the Keeping up with the Joneses

Keeping up with the Joneses

"Keeping up with the Joneses" is an idiom in many parts of the English-speaking world referring to the comparison to one's neighbor as a benchmark for social caste or the accumulation of material goods...

 theme.

The stir created by the book caused the author's schoolmaster father, James, to be boycott

Boycott

A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...

ed, and eventually he had to emigrate

Emigrate

Emigrate is a heavy metal band based in New York, led by Richard Z. Kruspe, the lead guitarist of the German band Rammstein.-History:Kruspe started the band in 2005, when Rammstein decided to take a year off from touring and recording...

; the author himself never returned to the area.

The novel resulted in a high-profile court

Court

A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...

 case by those who thought that they had been described. Hostility against the book led to its burning

Book burning

Book burning, biblioclasm or libricide is the practice of destroying, often ceremoniously, books or other written material and media. In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records, video tapes, and CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded...

.

MacNamara's novel has been reprinted several times, particularly when interest in the topic re-emerges. Valley of the squinting windows has become a colloquial term, particularly in Ireland, for a society

Society

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

obsessed with providing neighbours and peers with a good perception of one's personal matters.

Release details

• 1918, London, Sampson Low, Marston, Pub date 1918, hardback
• 1976, Ireland, Anvil Books ISBN 0-900068-35-3, Pub date ? September 1976, paperback
• 1984, Ireland, Anvil Books ISBN 0-900068-83-3, Pub date 11 July 1984, paperback
• 1984, Ireland, Anvil Books ISBN 0-900068-82-5, Pub date 11 July 1984, hardback
• 1985, Ireland, Anvil Books ISBN 0-947962-01-8, Pub date ? September 1985, paperback (in print)