Last February, when Astral Travel was originally due to come out, I wrote a short article for The Big Issue about novels with a theme that Astral Travel shares: Difficult Irish Fathers. The article was pulled along with the novel, as lockdown descended on us and the Big Issue stopped being sold on the streets. When the novel was finally due to come out in November, the article was scheduled once again - but then of course, we were plunged into a second lockdown, and so the article appeared only online. I doubt that many people read it therefore, and I was tempted to put it on here or on my website, but that would of course deprive the Big Issue of income. The issue, No 1327 is still online, and can be purchased for a mere £2.50 here. So do please buy it, if you'd like to read the way in which Astral Travel links on this theme with Edna O'Brien's Country Girls Trilogy, John McGahern's Amongst Women and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, and the ways in which it differs from them.