Much as we'd like to think otherwise, the Irish male is not a unique species. Even in Joe O'Connor's satiric version, he shares his shortcomings, from an inability to even contemplate cleaning the inside of a cooker to an inability to discuss his deeper feelings (assuming he has some), with much of the international male community.
American humorists as diverse as Dave Barry and Garrison Keillor have defined the problem in terms of guyness. In his Complete Guide to Guys, Barry differentiates between the achievements of men ("went to the moon") and the less distinguished history of guys ("invented mooning") and proceeds from there. Keillor takes a more cerebral approach in his Book of Guys, exploring the subject of the male in trouble in a series of stories including The Mid-life Crisis of Dionysus, in which the Greek god of wine turns 50.
The Last of the Irish Males is O'Connor's third and final instalment in the series he embarked upon in 1994. And since the author doesn't even have a midlife crisis to deal with - he's still only 37 - you might wonder how he had anything left to say on a subject which, all authorities agree, is not a complex one. In fact, in the straightforwardly humorous sections, the sound of the barrel being scraped here is occasionally hard to ignore. But O'Connor is sufficiently clever and inventive that you can't write him off even in the most unpromising circumstances. Take the chapter in which he enters a sex chat room on the Internet, and, posing as a woman, has a lengthy conversation with morons in the US. The dialogue depends largely for comic effect on the different transatlantic interpretations of two words, which suffice to say in a family newspaper, can mean "rooster" and "cat". This should be about as funny as Are You Being Served? and some of it is. Yet, incredibly, the author does extract laughs from the situation.
Much funnier are some of his straight descriptive pieces: a highlight being an affectionate tribute to a priest at his school who sweated when he laughed, until steam rose from his head. The account of the poor cleric doubled over in paroxysms while watching A Night at the Opera will set the hardest-hearted reader off in sympathy.
One of the least funny things in the book is the list at the start of O'Connor's other works. The US journalist Pete Hamill described him as "disgustingly young" at a reading in New York, and might have said "disgustingly prolific" as well. The 20 titles listed comprise novels, short stories, non-fiction, stageplays, screenplays and more. And it may be no surprise that there's a bit of everything in The Last of the Irish Males.
At 300 pages, the book would be too long for slapstick alone. The author solves this problem, dubiously, by devoting the middle of it to straight travel writing - on Majorca, Italy, Inishowen - and an account of a US book-tour. Engaging stuff it is too. And yet, two pages on George Sand's troubled relationship with Majorca, for example, make the section title "The Irish Male Goes Further Afield", look like a badly forged passport.
Back on legitimate ground, a piece on "the Irish Mammy" is a liberal's scold on the treatment of women by the State: too preachy for laughs. The inevitable "Is football better than sex?" chapter is a bit tired, with the author's orgasm over Leeds United sounding fake, at least to a Chelsea fan's ears. But he does somewhat rescue the football section by reprising his fictional character Eddie Virago for a funny short story set in June 1988, the day Ireland beat England in Stuttgart.
The final chapter is the book's tour de force, however. Abandoning comedy, the author reverts to straightforward autobiographical mode, recalling his parents' break-up when he was 13 and the problems it caused him subsequently. Problems which reached a happy crisis with his wife in a maternity clinic recently when, rendered speechless, he first heard the sound of his son's heartbeat.
This could be cliched, but it isn't. O'Connor was so moved by the experience, and describes it so beautifully, it is impossible not to be moved with him. And he brings a neat end to the series on this note, reflecting on life and death and looking forward to a future with his "own beloved Irish male".
Frank McNally is an Irish Times journalist
