Patricia Craig (2007) recognizes Johnston's perspicacity about contemporary Irish society and notes that 'Part of the author's achievement here is to undermine … conventional ideas about family relations and activities.' The questions that Ciara, the daughter in Foolish Mortals asks-'What, anyway, is a happy family?' (Johnston 2007, 148) and 'What's normal?' (172)-are among the central concerns of the text and part of the political discussions happening in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century Ireland. In addition, the family structure is redefined and reconfigured to include more types of families. These relationships may begin as difficult, as in her earlier work, but end in reconciliation. This book signifies a change in Johnston's depiction of family relationships. In Foolish Mortals (2007), Johnston focuses on the issue of family at both a personal and political level in order to reveal and inspire transformations in domestic relationships and gender roles in twenty-first-century Ireland.

Beginning with her first novel, The Captains and the Kings (1972), Johnston has explored the effects of Irish nationalism and politics on individuals. In 2012, her literary achievements were recognized by the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards, which honored her with the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award. She has won prizes such as the prestigious Whitbread Award, and her book Shadows on Our Skin (1977) was short-listed for the Booker Prize. To date, Irish writer Jennifer Johnston (1930–) has published eighteen novels and written numerous stage and radio plays.

Shadows on our skin jennifer johnston