The first novel by John McGahern, originally published in 1963.Elizabeth Regan, after years of freedom – and loneliness – marries into the enclosed Irish village of her upbringing. The children are not her own; her husband is straining against his job in the police force; and her own life, threatened by illness, seems to be losing the last vestiges of its purpose. Moving between tragedy and savage comedy, desperation and joy, The Barracks is a novel of haunting power.