Review: Nora Webster by Colm Toibin

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin: Nora Webster, recently widowed, lives in Wexford, Ireland in 1969 with her two young sons, Donal and Conor. She also has two older daughters who now live away from home. As the story opens, Nora is enveloped in her grief over the recent loss of her husband, Maurice, to a long illness and is facing the practical challenges of being a widow. She worries about needing to sell a seaside property that has special meaning for her children and at which she has wonderful memories with her late husband but she cannot afford to keep the small cottage now that she must support her family alone. She faces the pitying looks of her neighbors and the constant flow of people stopping by to check on her. She worries about her young sons and how they are adjusting to this loss but mostly she is blinded to the effects by her own grief. As Nora moves through her grief, she gradually discovers herself.

 Nora is in a fog following the death of her husband Maurice. She is haunted by his last days which were spent in pain and in a hospital where she felt he got little support from his doctor. Everyone has an opinion on how Nora should move forward - from her sisters, to Maurice's brother and his wife to her Aunt Josie. Nora finds all their opinions intrusive and no help in determining her path but she is unable to state her point of view. In an effort to keep her emotions in control, she is almost shut down and appears passive. Amid this passivity, however, there are glimmers of her will. At her sister's home for the weekend, Nora takes to the formal front room and reads for an afternoon alone much to the bewilderment of her sister who hurried around the home preparing meals and heading into town to shop. While on vacation at the seaside with her Aunt Josie, Nora strikes out and finds another place to sleep in order to escape her older aunt's snoring. A big part of Nora's movement beyond her grief was getting a job. She returns to an office job at Gibney's where she worked before her children were born. She is initially cowed by the powerful Gibney family and a controlling office manager but slowly but surely she asserts herself and develops a confidence in her skills. Piece by piece, Nora emerges from her grief and returns not to the woman she was before her husband's death but becomes a new woman who knows her mind and isn't afraid to follow it.

My Thoughts
Typical of Toibin's style, this novel is quiet and unassuming. Despite Nora's grief being so central to the story, there is no melodrama and a notable lack of emotion on Nora's part. She suffers quietly and only with fleeting connections to her own emotions and certainly to those of her sons. At times, the distance from her young sons is hard to understand especially given that they are obviously so affected by their father's death and its effect on the family. You do see, however, the fierceness of her love for her sons as she musters up the courage to defend Conor to the Christian Brothers at his school who think he should be demoted a grade. There is a passion there but it is buried beneath her grief and some expectation that she not express her emotions or overtly display her affection for her children.

Nora is an ordinary woman; it is Toibin's skill as an author which brings her to life as she proceeds through mundane activities. He artfully offers glimpses into the woman that Nora is becoming and peeks into her internal dialogue. I was quite impressed by this book and reassured by Nora's ability to emerge from her grief. This is not, however, my favorite book by the author.  The Blackwater Lightship still holds that position but I highly recommend Nora Webster.

Audiobook Review: The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin

In The Testament of Mary (3 hours, 7 minutes; narrated by Meryl Streep), author Colm Toibin gives voice to Mary, mother of Jesus. Now elderly, Mary remembers the crucifixion of her Son and retells it in grim detail. She also provides her perspective on his followers - and it is not an exalted view. In much the same way, she is cynical about her Son's death; she does not share his view that He will rise again and questions whether His violent death was "worth it". Her bitter, resigned tone is in stark contrast to the portrait painted of her in Bible as a long-suffering but gracious martyr who sacrificed her only Son for the greater good of humanity.

In this novella, Mary is a grieving mother, mourning the loss of her only Son. With mourning, comes anger - anger at those that killed him, at herself for not doing enough for him on his path to crucifixion and anger at his zealous followers and what she sees as their celebration of his death. To them, he was a leader of a movement and he has left a legacy they must carry on by telling his stories in Gospels and starting the Church. To Mary, however, he was her son - completely human, cruelly executed and his death is nothing to be celebrated. His supposed legacy does not bring her comfort. Rather, she is suspicious of His disciples, questions their motives and finds their efforts to care for her cloying and overbearing.

My Thoughts
This book fascinated me not only because it provided a provocative view so contrary to everything I learned in Catholic school but also because the author executes the narrative with such artistry. In typical Toibin style, the language is spare but beautiful. The spare narrative only emphasizes the raw grief experienced by Mary and brings that to life. Mary in this tale is, first and foremost, human. She experiences grief you would expect from any mother but it is still shocking as it runs counter to all we have been told about the martyr Mary who gave up her only Son to save the world. Even though the events of the story - walking to the cross, His death, and the discovery of the empty tomb on the third day are well known by those familiar with the New Testament, this novella is gripping because we hear it from the perspective of someone who cannot celebrate the miracle but rather mourns her Son and questions how there can be any value in his cruel death.

The audiobook is narrated by Meryl Streep and her performance is exemplary. I felt as if I was sitting in a theater listening to a Broadway performance.  She imbues each line with such emotion that I actually had a heavy heart listening in places as Meryl as Mary describes her overwhelming grief. As beautiful as Toibin's written words are, I think they were made all the better by Streep's performance.  Highly recommend this provocative but beautiful novella.

Review: Solace by Belinda McKeon

Solace by Belinda McKeon is set in modern day Ireland while the country is in the throes of economic crisis following the boom years.  Mark Casey is a PhD student at Trinity College in Dublin and is called home frequently to Longford to help his father, Tom, with the family farm. Mark deeply resents being urged back to the farm each weekend but his dislike for farming, like so much else, remains unsaid between Mark and his father. His mother constantly negotiates a careful peace between father and son - gently reminding Mark of his obligation to the family while making excuses to Tom when Mark doesn't make it down from Dublin for another weekend. Mark is away from home but not truly away  - the binds to the farm and family are not easily broken.

While in Dublin, Mark meets Joanne, a trainee "solicitor" (attorney) and they quickly fall into a relationship.  Like Mark, Joanne is from Longford and somewhat estranged from her family.  Although her mother doesn't expect her home each weekend, their relationship, much like Mark and Tom's, is fractured and she is separated from her mother by more than the mileage between Dublin and Longford. In that sense, Mark and Joanne understand each other and are both struggling to live their own lives separate from their families of origin.  Joanne certainly succeeds at that to a greater degree than Mark but she pays the price of total estrangement from her mother whereas Mark is unable to shut his parents out and carries out his obligatory farm work many weekends each month.

The book opens with a scene involving Mark, Tom and a baby girl on the farm - it is clearly post a tragedy but the reader doesn't know what tragedy has occurred or the relationship of the baby to Tom and Mark.  The novel then flashes back and moves slowly towards the tragic event. This keeps the story moving despite it being an otherwise quiet novel. The quietness stems from the persistent tension between the characters - especially Mark and Tom. The two men understand so little about each other but struggle, still, to communicate until it is almost painful to watch. Underneath their resentments and lack of understanding for each other, however, is a desire to connect and a love between father and son which cannot be denied.

My Thoughts
I was introduced to this book during a reading I attended at The Center of Fiction. Belinda McKeon, a young, debut writer from Ireland, appeared with Colm Toibin, one of Ireland's greatest modern writers. Each read from their new novels and talked about how "home" was represented in their novels and the meaning of home in many Irish novels. After reading Solace, I see other parallels between McKeon and Toibin's writing. They both write quiet novels where little may happen on the surface but there is much going on in the mind of the characters as they struggle to understand themselves and relate to those around them.  There is a darkness to their novels generally created by troubled characters steadily moving through life. If Toibin's spare style with characters grappling to understand themselves and move beyond losses great and small appeals to you, pick up Solace.  I am confident this novel will be one of many for the talented writer.

Author Event: Colm Tobin on Henry James

Two weeks ago I attended a talk by Colm Toibin at The Tenement Museum  - I was so fortunate to be able to make it to this event!  As I have mentioned on this blog before, Colm Toibin is a favorite author of mine so I jumped at the chance to hear him talk.  He did not disappoint - his comments were insightful and he peppered his talk with a signature Irish wit.

The focus of his talk was the author Henry James.  Toibin is a scholar of James and in addition to a writing a number of essays and literary criticism pieces about the author (now collected in All a Novelist Needs: Colm Tóibín on Henry James),  made him the subject of his novel The Master which is a fictionalized account of James's life.  As I mentioned in my review of the Master, the novel is a beautifully written and Toibin deftly weaves fiction with the facts about Henry James.  It is no surprise that the book was shortlisted for the Booker.  In the talk, Toibin referenced James's reported homosexuality which he worked very hard to conceal his entire life.  In fact, it was only after James's death and upon reading his letters and his contemporaries' journals that scholars concluded James was a closeted homosexual.  Toibin made the point that in many of James's works there is a theme of things being "hidden" or held beneath the surface which he connects with the author's attempts to conceal his sexual orientation.

In answer to a question about how he balanced the facts of James's life with a fictional storyline, Colm Toibin provided an insightful answer - he said, in essence, that every author puts their own stamp on a story and reveals as much about themselves as about the subject of their novel.  He posited that he could provide everyone in the audience the same research and material about Henry James and we would each write a different novel about his life because we would all view the material through the lens of our own experiences and life story and that would be reflected in what we wrote.  I thought that was an excellent way of describing the art of writing and what an author shares each time they write a work and provide it to us to read -  they truly share a piece of themselves.

About the Venue

The Tenement Museum in New York City celebrates the immigrant experience from a unique vantage point - the inside of 97 Orchard St which was once a tenement apartment building on the Lower East Side.  They offer guided tours of apartments recreated to look like the apartments inhabited by the many immigrants who lived on the Lower East Side in the 19th century.  It is a great experience and I definitely recommend it to any NYC visitor.  Throughout the year, they host Tenement Talks, such as the one I attended with Colm Toibin.

Have you read anything by Colm Toibin and/or Henry James?

Review: Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Toibin
From Amazon.com: Committed to a quiet life in little Enniscorthy, Ireland, the industrious young Eilis Lacey reluctantly finds herself swept up in an unplanned adventure to America, engineered by the family priest and her glamorous, "ready for life" sister, Rose. Eilis's determination to embrace the spirit of the journey despite her trepidation--especially on behalf of Rose, who has sacrificed her own chance of leaving--makes a bittersweet center for Brooklyn. Colm Tóibín's spare portrayal of this contemplative girl is achingly lovely, and every sentence rings with truth. Readers will find themselves swept across the Atlantic with Eilis to a boarding house in Brooklyn where she painstakingly adapts to a new life, reinventing herself and her surroundings in the letters she writes home. Just as she begins to settle in with the help of a new love, tragedy calls her home to Enniscorthy, and her separate lives suddenly and painfully merge into one. Tóibín's haunted heroine glows on the page, unforgettably and lovingly rendered, and her story reflects the lives of so many others exiled from home.

My Review: This slim novel is written in Toibin's signature spare style - on the surface it may seem like little is going on but the power lies in observations stated in simple sentences. In the first half of the book (approximately 125 pages), we meet Eilis in Co. Wexford and follow her across the Atlantic to 1950's Brooklyn where she lives in a boardinghouse and works in a department store on Fulton St. Eilis also meets Tony, a first generation Brooklynite, and without much enthusiasm begins a relationship with him. At times, I was frustrated by Eilis's lack of passion for Tony - he so obviously cared for her and she seemed indifferent at times. But as the novel progressed, it was clear that her love for Tony, although not wildly passionate, was certainly a slow burn. After a tragedy at home, Eilis returns to Ireland and grapples with the life she left behind including obligations to her mother.

This novel obviously deals with the theme of immigration. Toibin does an excellent job of depicting the life of an immigrant as one caught between two worlds. As Eilis tries to assimilate into life in Brooklyn, she also aches for the familiarity of her home and family in Ireland. In this quote, the Eilis's homesickness is palpable:

"She had been keeping the thought of home out of her mind, letting it come to her only when she wrote or received letters or when she woke from a dream in which her mother or father or Rose . . . appeared. She thought it strange that the mere sensation of savouring the prospect of something could make her think for a while that it must be the prospect of home."

And when she returns to Ireland, she finds she doesn't as easily fit there as she would have hoped:

"She had put no thought into what it would be like to come home because she had expected that it would be easy; she had longed so much for the familiarity of these rooms that she had presumed that she would be happy and relieved to step back into them, but, instead, on this first morning, all she could do was count the days before she went back."

As the daughter of immigrants with a grandmother who returned "home" to Scotland twice only to realize as much as she didn't feel settled in NY, she also no longer belonged back home, the loss of belonging and home experienced by immigrants resonates for me. Toibin's spare, bleak style only makes this loss that much more poignant in Brooklyn.

I am a fan of Toibin's work and Brooklyn is no exception - it is moving in a very quiet way and stays with you after you read the last page.

This book meets the criteria for the Ireland Reading Challenge , NYC Challenge, "place" category of What's In a Name? "Win Win" category of Twenty Ten Challenge

Author Colm Toibin: Two Reviews

Author Colm Toibin is an Irish writer and the author of many novels and short stories including Brooklyn, The Master, and The Blackwater Lightship: A Novel. Bookslut (gotta love that name!) has an interview with the author and in it he shares some interesting perspectives on writing and his works. You can also check out the review of one of Toibin's short stories by Joann from Lakeside Musing. I am anxiously awaiting my turn at Brooklyn (my Mom has it right now) but I have read a few of Toibin's works and thought I would do a double review . . .


I first discovered the author a number of years ago when I read Blackwater Lightship - I was gripped by the beauty of Toibin's prose. Although melancholy pervades this novel about a young man, Declan, who returns to his grandmother's home on the coast of Ireland as he is dying of AIDS, the writing is so beautiful that I didn't want to put the book down. The characters drawn by the author are complex which makes this novel so compelling. Declan's family, unaware of the disease he has been fighting, bring all their unresolved issues to the house; the interplay of those issues and the realization by Declan's sister, mother and grandmother that he is dying make for powerful scenes. The scenes, however, are quietly powerful which somehow seems very Irish - there are no impassioned outbursts of emotion. Another draw to the novel for me was it's setting - Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. I have family from this part of Ireland and spent some time visiting the beaches here when I was a child. Toibin described the seaside so beautifully in the novel and I felt as if I had returned.


The Master is Toibin's fictionalized portrait of the author Henry James. Before reading this novel, I had not read anything by James. I wonder if my experience with The Master would have been different if I had read some of Henry James's works or was at least acquainted with his life. Despite this ignorance, I still really enjoyed Toibin's master. Again, as with Blackwater Lightship, the beautiful writing impressed me and I felt carried through the novel by it. This is not a book, however, that you read quickly. The pace is slow and the subject, Henry James, is difficult to get to know. Although you don't need to have read James before reading this novel, I imagine the book would seem even richer with the knowledge of James and his works.