[2] McGuire is from Hull, East Yorkshire and studied at the University of Manchester.
[2] He has published articles on Walt Whitman, Herman Melville and William Dean Howells, and his sphere of interest is the American realist tradition from 1880s onwards.
[1] His biography of Richard Ford, an American short story writer, "... argues that Ford’s work is best understood as a form of pragmatic realism and thus positions him as part of a deeply rooted and ongoing American debate about the nature of realism and pragmatism.
"[4] His novel The North Water's strength "lies in its well-researched detail and persuasive descriptions of the cold, violence, cruelty and the raw, bloody business of whale-killing.
"[5] Ian McGuire is married and lives with his wife and two children in Manchester.