“There Were Heart-Mysteries There”: An Interview with Charles Fanning

Abstract

Charles Fanning is a founding figure in the study of Irish American literature. In this interview, Fanning discusses the backgrounds of his scholarly career and the emergence of Irish American literature as a subspecialty. He notes his indebtedness to his mentor John V. Kelleher. Fanning discusses his research career, taking note of a number of the authors and writings he has retrieved and analyzed; prominent among these are the “Mr. Dooley” columns of the Chicago humorist Finley Peter Dunne. Fanning’s indisputable masterwork is The Irish Voice in America: Irish-American Fiction from the 1760s to the 1980s (1991), which he discusses here. He comments on the relevance of regions, gender, and religion in Irish American fiction. He offers extensive remarks on the realist novelist James T. Farrell, whom Fanning places at the center of the twentieth-century tradition. He makes observations on the current status of Irish American ethnicity and its literary expression. The interview concludes with Fanning discussing his writings since retirement, which include a memoir and a novel-in-progress.