I Am Mary Dunne

I Am Mary Dunne

First edition
Author	Brian Moore
Publisher	Jonathan Cape
Publication date	19 June 1968 (US); 17 October 1968 (UK)
Preceded by	The Emperor of Ice-Cream (1965)
Followed by	Fergus (1970)

I Am Mary Dunne is a novel, first published in 1968, by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore about one day in the life of a beautiful and well-to-do 31-year-old Canadian woman living in New York City with her third husband, a successful playwright. Triggered by seemingly unimportant occurrences, the protagonist / first person narrator remembers her past in a series of flashbacks, which reveal her insecurities, her bad conscience concerning her first two husbands, and her fear that she is on the brink of insanity.

I Am Mary Dunne has been described as "perhaps [Brian Moore's] best book".[1] Robert Fulford, writing in Canada's The Globe and Mail, calls it "[a] feminist novel written before the wave of feminist novels began".[2]

In its original draft, I Am Mary Dunne was called A Woman of No Identity.[3]

References

1. Head, Dominic (2006). The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, third edition. p. 762. ISBN 978-0521831796.
2. Fulford, Robert (12 January 1999). "Brian Moore: A writer who never failed to surprise his readers". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
3. Craig, Patricia (2002). Brian Moore: A Biography. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 199. ISBN 978-0747560043.

Further reading

• Brady, Charles A. "I Am Mary Dunne" in Eire-Ireland 3, Winter 1968, pp. 136–40.
• Dorenkamp, J H. "Finishing the day: Nature and Grace in Two Novels by Brian Moore" in Eire-Ireland 13, Spring 1978, pp. 103–112.