Writers’ misery not shared by all of us

IT seems your columnist Diarmaid Ferriter (May 15) seeks to use the unfortunate experiences of writers Nuala O’Faoláin and John McGahern in effect to psychoanalyse the entire nation, and it appears the verdict is not particularly favourable to the rest of us.

Talk about judging from the particular to the universal. I’m not adverse to the odd bit of ‘misery lit’ myself, but when it is dragooned into the cause of a sweeping putdown of the broader society it must be seriously questioned.

I’m just curious: would there be a market for the memoirs of those of us who had reasonably happy, whisper it, Catholic childhoods.