Blackwell Reference Online

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Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1921, Brian Moore spent the majority of his life in Canada and the US. The author of some 20 novels, he is characterized as a talented storyteller as well as someone with a keen understanding of the female psyche ( O'Donoghue, 1991 ). By the time of his death in January 1999, Moore's standing was extremely high: a lucrative book contract signed with Bloomsbury in 1988 made him financially secure and many of his novels were successfully adapted for the screen (most notably Catholics, Black Robe, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne , and Lies of Silence). While many of the earlier novels have a distinctively Irish flavor, others are situated in France, the US, Canada, and South America. The family of Moore's upbringing was staunchly Catholic and nationalistic, yet Moore found the religious atmosphere of Belfast stifling. Lacking what he described as a religious sense, and being uninspired by the thought of following his father and brothers into a career in medicine, he fled Belfast to work in the British Ministry of War Transport in 1942. Much of what he experienced traveling around Europe and North Africa at the end of World War II was filed away and used in subsequent novels such as The Colour of Blood ( 1987 ), The Statement ( 1995 ), and The Magician's Wife ( 1997 ). Although a confirmed agnostic from an early age, Moore was fascinated ... log in or subscribe to read full text