1921–99, Canadian-American novelist, b. Belfast, Northern Ireland. He emigrated to Canada in 1948, where he was a reporter for the Montreal Gazette. He later moved to the United States and was a longtime resident of Malibu, Calif., although he maintained Canadian citizenship. While his novels are often concerned with people who are capable of hypocrisy and self-delusion, a comic vein runs through them. In clear, precise prose, Moore sets his beautifully drawn, isolated characters against a world marked by provincialism and religiosity. Moore's fiction has never been enormously popular, but it is strongly admired by other writers and a devoted group of readers. His novels, each of which is strikingly different in plot, setting, and historical period, include The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1956), The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960), The Great Victorian Collection (1975), Black Robe (1985), Lies of Silence (1990), The Statement (1996), and The Magician's Wife (1998). Several of his works were made into films. He also wrote under the name Michael Bryan.

See D. Sampson, Brian Moore: The Chameleon Novelist (1998); studies by H. Dahlie (1969, 1981), J. Flood (1974), K. McSweeney (1983), J. O'Donoghue (1990), and R. J. Sullivan (1996).

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