hardly a likely outcome when one considers the conservative rural background that he emerged from, saying of his youth spent in his family home that it was characterised by "a great deal of silence". Tóibín chose to first address his own homosexuality, with no great deal of ceremony, in his essay “New Ways of Killing Your Father” published in November 1993 for London Review of Books. This development must be read against the cultural climate of the time. David Norris (politician) had, at this stage, successfully lobbied the European Court of Human Rights to declare a ruling that the antigay laws in Ireland were a flagrant transgression of the European Convention on Human Rights. Such a ruling had resulted in the passing of a bill by Dáil Éireann in June 1993 that decriminalised homosexuality in Ireland. This is the context that Tóibín, as a gay writer, was emerging from, one of transition and burgeoning reclamation of a lost gay identity. This reclamation is best captured by the critic Jennifer M. Jeffers when she says 'Irish novels in the last decade of the twentieth century push the heterosexual culture to see its “inbuilt” gender identifications, needless to say, this is not a comfortable or easy process. Irish religious, gender, sexual and material precedents in fiction that overtly challenge heterosexual culture and regulation are basically nonexistent'. Thus, Tóibín's creative output - post 1993, increasingly explores themes of homosexuality in such a way that parallels his 'increasingly public self-identification as gay'. Main characters Henry James – Protagonist and focus of the novel's narrative. Alice James – Neurotic, invalid sister of Henry James. William James – Henry's overbearing older brother. Wilkie James – Henry's younger brother, brutally injured during the American Civil War. Minnie Temple – Effervescent young cousin of Henry James who was the recipient of much affection from the young Henry. Constance Fenimore Woolson – Shared a complex friendship with Henry. Her non-platonic attraction to him going unreciprocated. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. – A college friend who James vacationed with. Paul Joukowsky – Artist residing in Paris with whom the young James experienced a close friendship. Corporal Hammond – Manservant assigned to Henry during his stay in Ireland, who seemingly offers an unspoken sexual encounter with the writer. Hendrik Christian Andersen – An opportunistic sculptor who takes advantage of an older James in order to help forward his own career. Resided in