The evollution of O'Brien's style, and of literary style in general - in the Country Girls trilogy

Reading through Edna O'Brien's Country Girls trilogy - her 1st three novels, each 2 years apart, 1960-64, with an epigraph some 20 years later - we see of course her development in style and in courage, and we also get a glimpse of the evolution of literary style during the tumultuous 1960s. The first volume felt much like a memoir, or today we might call it auto-fiction, quite typical of a novelist's first go at it; the 2nd volume, with her central character (Caithleen, later just Kate) experiencing her first lasting relationship and sexual intercourse, was somewhat more daring, at least for its time. The 3rd volume, Girls in Their Marital Bliss, was a big jump ahead, using two first-person narrators in alternating chapters (smart decision, as the Kate character becomes more of a doormat and her best friend, Baba, by far the more memorable character). This multi-narrative technique was at least a glance toward the narrative exploration that would characterize much of the best fiction writing in the 60s and 70s; most notable, though, is the far more explicit and graphic sexuality, not common in novels by women, especially in Ireland, where sex remained a taboo topic late into the century. In the 3rd volume we see Kate break away from her husband, an insufferable bully and egotist, and her struggle to live on he own in near-poverty; though it's never stated explicitly, this novel is in part an indictment of the marriage and divorce laws of the time, leaving the husband's fortune untouched as the woman (and child) suffer. It's also significant that neither woman is exactly a saint; both have their sexual flings outside of marriage, particularly Baba, so the men are not entirely in the wrong in their outbursts of bitterness and rage - although Bab's husband takes matters too far when he gets violent. Among other topics, we see the horrors of the clandestine abortion clinics and overall a depiction of the woes of marriage; the title of the volume is needlessly ironic. The epilogue, composed when the books were grouped as a trilogy, brings us 20 years forward, narrated by Baba, who at this point is extremely frank about her extra-marital affairs - you can't help but think of this composition as O'Brien's homage and response to Molly Bloom's soliloquy, the epitome of writing banned in Ireland, only decades later to be embraced as part of the cultural heritage.