This isn't my usual type of reading material, but the book came as a bundle with the author's "House of Names", a reinterpretation of the Ancient Greek myth of Agamemnon/Clytemnestra et al, which I bought because I'm reading quite a few retellings of Greek Mythology at present. As such, I'm not the best audience for this, but I found it interesting in parts. The book was published in 1999 and concerns the terminal illness of Declan, a gay man who has contracted AIDS, and the womenfolk of his family who have been locked in a feud for many years.

The main character, Helen, who is Declan's sister, is happily married, the mother of two boys and a successful headmistress of a school. But her early life continues to haunt her, dating back to the death of her father of an unstated illness, almost certainly cancer. When he was taken to hospital, her mother sent her and Declan away to their grandparents' B&B by the sea in a remote area of Ireland, while she remained in Dublin. The children never saw him again and she did not visit. Eventually he died and they were brought back, but Helen felt that her mother was cold and rejecting and an attention-seeker.

As a student, Helen was guilt-tripped into acting as a skivvy at her grandmother's B&B each summer while her, now widowed, grandmother gave the orders. Due to this, Helen gave up the chance to go to America two summers running with Hugh, who subsequently cold-shouldered her, so it is odd that they married and the author does not explain what happened to change Hugh's attitude. Eventually, she stood up to them and resisted their attempt to prevent her taking a teaching job in Dublin. As a result of all this, Helen didn't invite her mother, Lily, to her wedding or home, and Lily has never seen her grandsons. Helen dreaded having to tell her about Declan, and as the days wear on at granny's house, all of them living together with Paul and Larry, two friends of Declan's, who have come to help with his physical and mental support, tensions rise. Despite this, the characters have to overcome their mutual antipathies and antagonisms to help Declan and bring him comfort.

The characters are rather unevenly written, though possibly this is an attempt to portray real people. The attitude of Paul towards Helen is annoying : when she explains the situation that arose from her mother and grandmother trying to railroad her into a job at what sounds to have been an inferior, though local, school, he dismisses this in a superior manner as insufficient reason for her to have cut her mother out of her life. But they had attempted to control and manipulate her, to the extent of bringing paper for her to write a letter withdrawing her application to the job she'd already accepted! Helen "admits" that the real reason is Lily's coldness to her since her father's death, but the attempt to sabotage her budding career was more than enough, given the difficulties a woman faced in making a life for herself, especially in Ireland in the 1990s. They did not, of course, do the same thing to Declan when he left school or college, and try to inveigle him into staying home and helping out domestically! As Helen finally says to Lily, her mother has never accepted her for who she is and has always wanted her to be someone different. However, as the story draws to a close, there is an indication that bridges are tentatively being reconstructed between mother and daughter.

Not my usual genre, as I said at the beginning, but overall I would rate it at 3 stars. ( )

This is a wonderful book, perfectly paced and beautifully simple. The characters are all believable and I found the journey of the protagonist, Helen, very easy to relate to. The details of relationships may be different, but the challenge of living with old patterns of behaviour is surely something everyone struggles with.

The prose is incredibly controlled, so tight and honest that the simplest images or thoughts can have a searing impact.

The only reservation I would make to my prose is that the last quarter or so tends a little toward soap opera, but maybe this is justified as the characters face momentous challenges in their lives. ( )

Another wonderful Irish family story from Tóibín. The half familiar language, rhythm and place names.
Beautifully paced and crafted, sad but with hope. ( )

I know this was shortlisted for a Booker, but I did not love it. To me the writing was sparse and cold. Dialogue made leaps and characters went on unexplained emotional roller coasters. I felt that too much was left unsaid by the narrator, so I didn't connect with any of the characters -- they were all puzzling and their motivations weren't clear. It's mostly about Helen and her relationship with her mother and grandmother -- strained because she refused to follow their agendas for her youth and because she felt abandoned by her mother when her father died. The mother oscillates between trying to love her children and being a self-centred entrepreneur. The grandmother is both open-minded and old-fashioned paradoxically. The two men that help these women with Declan are also puzzling in their devotion and self-assuredness. Declan is just a baby who wants his mother. For a character who is in the centre of the attention, he has almost no voice.
The book ends with the implication of reconciliation, but it's hard to tell if this is actually a good thing or not. Does the mother deserve it? Did she deserve her daughter's isolating behaviour? We all make choices based on what we think is needed at the time, but we cannot know the long term ramifications on others. Are we to be held accountable for that? Maybe that's what this book is asking. ( )

Never heard of this author before, and this is the first book of his that I have read.

It is set in Ireland, and is centred around three estranged generations of the same family that are thrust back together as the son is close to death with AIDS. They decamp to the grandmothers house close to the sea with two of his friends, where they try to care for hims as his approaches the end of his life.

Helen, the main character, has had a terrible relationship with her mother after she felt completely abandoned when her father was also dying. Together in the house the relationship is very strained and they test each other. they are coming to terms with a son and brother dying, bring back all the terrible memories for Helen.

Declan, the brother, suffers terribly with the ravages of the illness, and his friends seem to be the only level heads as the family try to re-adjust the boundaries of their relationships.

The writing in this book is effortless, especially given the subject. Helen is a strong character, the others less so. I felt that Declan was almost a side show to the main plot of the mother & daughter relationship. I liked the ending, as you are left with a mix of hope for Helen and Lily and and despair for Declan, and he has not tied the ends together to neaten it up, and leaves you wondering.

( )