Moore
never embraced any nationality. He was a nonconformist in
Catholic Belfast, became an Irishman in Canada, but retained
his Canadian citizenship while living in the United States.
Moore's home was in front of his typewriter, alone and happy.
Moore once likened the feeling of entering his study first
thing in the morning to entering a room full of people he
knew.
Throughout much of his life, Moore felt most at home near
the sea, perhaps because he was always able to sense Ireland
on the horizon whether he was in Nova Scotia or Malibu. But
Moore always loved the West of Ireland. This was a special
place for him, where he felt close to his boyhood memories
but could sense America in the distance. In his final essay,
called Going Home, he wrote of his love for Connemara, stating
that '...I know that when I die I would like to come home
at last to be buried here in this quiet place among the grazing
cows.'
Moore once said that he left Ireland because he feared it
would not change, but had been drawn to return to it because
it hadn't changed. He returned to the theme of Ireland in
his 1990 Booker shortlisted novel,
Lies of Silence,
in which he charts the story of a Belfast hotel manager who
is forced to drive a proxy bomb to his own hotel.
But Belfast has been slow to recognise this literary genius
as one of its own. Brian Moore's first public reading in his
home town happened in 1993, when he was over seventy years
old. Brian Moore died at his home in Malibu on the 10 January
1999.
Introduction
