Introduction

This introduction sets out the argument of the book, which is to assess the writings of Irish writer Paul Howard, and his eponymous character, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, as being of cultural and stylistic significance. and it will use the thought of Pierre Bourdieu, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida to critique this division and to build a theoretical platform from which to examine the significance of Howard's work as an Irish writer from an academic perspective. This introduction offers plot summaries of the novels as well as setting out the chapter structure of the book.