John D. Sheridan

John D. Sheridan was a newspaper writer whose humorous articles made him a favorite of the narrator’s father. His importance to the narrator’s story lies in the unexpected turn from paternal recommendation to silence: Sheridan was held up as a model for a young writer, then disappeared from household conversation after praising that writer’s novel.

A Writer Admired by the Father

The father particularly enjoyed Sheridan’s humorous articles. When he discovered that the narrator was trying to write, he responded with advice drawn from this admiration, recommending that the narrator copy Sheridan. The recommendation established Sheridan as a familiar standard of writing in the household before the narrator’s literary career had publicly begun.

The father’s regard for Sheridan also contrasts with his suspicion of publicity surrounding the narrator’s earlier success. He had resented Brother Placid’s use of a photograph in local newspapers to advertise the school after the narrator won scholarships, seeing the gesture as gloating and self-congratulation. Sheridan, by contrast, was already a writer the father willingly praised and recommended.

Review of The Barracks

In 1963, The Barracks was published and widely praised. Sheridan reviewed it glowingly in The Irish Independent, a newspaper the father read. The review, titled “Classical Tragedy in the Barracks,” brought the father’s favored writer into direct contact with the narrator’s own literary achievement: the man once offered as a model was now publicly judging the narrator’s work.

Silence After the Praise

After Sheridan’s review appeared, his name was never mentioned in the house again. The account gives no explicit explanation for the silence, so its motive remains unstated. Its placement nevertheless marks a sharp reversal: the father’s former recommendation of Sheridan ended at the moment Sheridan praised the narrator’s novel. That silence makes Sheridan a small but telling figure in the family’s uneasy encounter with the narrator’s success.