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Abstract
Bringing Back Murphy is a novel that explores the condition of its protagonist, James Murphy, as suffering from an arrested psychological, emotional and spiritual development. The cause of his arrested development results from two sources. The first source is the abandonment of Murphy by his family during his late adolescence. The second source, and in part a result of the first source, is Murphy's romanticizing of a time in his life from 1965 to 1970, which he has allowed to grow to unwarranted dimensions until that time has overwhelmed his present.
The novel is framed in the immediate present, with Murphy approaching his fiftieth birthday and feeling at odds with his life. This feeling of being at odds impels him to explore the past, including his childhood. What he discovers at the completion of his recollection is that the time from 1965 to 1970 was less remarkable than he has allowed it to become. Finally, he realizes that the remarkable time is the present, and this realization allows him to reconsider the previous twenty-three years in a new and more productive light.
