John McGahern's first novel "The Barracks" was published in the U.S. in 2004. Balancing tragedy and black comedy McGahern's story revolves around Elizabeth Reegan, who after years of loneliness, gets married and settles into Irish village life. But Elizabeth's husband (who has children from a previous marriage) is frustrated by his work as a police officer, and brings these woes home often. As so often in McGahern's later works, it is this kind of everyday difficulty which often seems both unbearable and unavoidable. ($14 / 232 pages / Penguin)