At Swim-Two-Birds question

You have to absorb a much bigger picture of Irish literature especially in the context of the group of Dublin authors that met in the 1950's (see Anthony Cronin) and the influence of Yeats. The shortest and less esteemed member of this group was poor old Brian O'Nolan, passionate, whiskey addled, civil servant, defender of all that is Irish, who could never match Yeats or Joyce, and to boot a columnist for money. Number one fan of Joyce whose wife was Nora. Unfortunately, Flann is a visionary but not the complete author. Nora does not give tuppence about her husband James's writing. But Flann is confused: Where are my daughters unborn when another better writer has a dis-functional family? Where is my Ireland, not with Sweeney comfort of all that is Celtic, but rather shunted down the Vico road with De Selby inventor of darkness and Orlick the old bastard son and inheritor of all that is Irish but is a bloody European. Round and round, bicycles rule the word!
and so he cut his jugular three times. Father, son and holy spirit: "goodbye, goodbye, goodbye".

This book made me laugh so hard, I re-read it when I'm feeling down. It's a hard go for someone who is not Irish or doesn't know much about the culture, the humor has been lost on a couple people I've given it to. I haven't read it in years and will do so to see if I can offer anything about the ending. What I do know is that there is a strong possibility (I'm remembering this from college courses) that Mr. O'Brian wrote it as a parody of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". After I read "At Swim-Two-Birds" I could never again read "Portrait" and keep a straight face! To this day, I refer to my husband as "Mr. My Friend". There was a stage production of it in Dublin when I was there and the theater was packed with people all wondering how in the world they were going to make this a successful stage work. Anyway, so glad you enjoyed one of my favorite books!