Finding Connections

by P.J. Kavanagh

The Author's last non-fiction book, "The Perfect Stranger" charted his early experiences, the premature death of his wife being the central event, causing him to reflect, and try to make sense of his life. In the form of a journey to Australia to search for his great-grandfather, Patrick, from County Carlow, he tells of the sense he has made of his life in the 25 years since his wife's death. The journey takes him not only into the the south-west wilderness of Tasmania, the rain forest, and the bush of New Zealand, but also into the past and present, into the nature of "Irishness" and its effects, into religion, tradition, myth and into the life of the author's father, writer of the wartime radio show ITMA. The author's autobiographical memoir, "The Perfect Stranger" won the Richard Hilary Prize 1966.

216 pages, Paperback

Published March 28, 1991

About the author

P. J. Kavanagh was a poet, writer, actor, broadcaster and columnist. Born in 1931, son of the radio comedy writer Ted Kavanagh, he went to a Benedictine school, served in the Korean war during national service, and worked for the British Council in Barcelona and Indonesia. He acted on stage and TV – his last appearance in an episode of Father Ted. The Perfect Stranger, awarded the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize in 1966, describes his early life. His columns for The Spectator and the Times Literary Supplement (he called them substitute poems) are collected in People and Places (1988) and A Kind of Journal (2003).

Poetry remained his major occupation. His New Selected Poems came out in 2014. Earlier collections include Presences (1987), An Enchantment (1991) and Something About (2004). His Collected Poems was given the Cholmondeley Award in 1992.

His novel A Song and Dance won the 1968 Guardian Fiction Prize. His other novels are A Happy Man, People and Weather and Only by Mistake, and for younger readers Scarf Jack and Rebel for Good. A travel-autobiography Finding Connections traces his Irish forebears in New Zealand. He edited G. K. Chesterton and Ivor Gurney, and the anthologies Voices in Ireland, The Oxford Book of Short Poems (with James Michie) and A Book of Consolations.

P. J. died in August 2015 in the Cotswold hills, where he had come to live with his wife and two sons over forty years before.