Review 1786: The Unforeseen

Although I haven’t yet read Dorothy Macardle’s The Uninvited, the movie based on it remains one of my favorites for Halloween. I didn’t realize that The Unforeseen is not a sequel to it but a follow-up and that a few of the characters make a reappearance. So, I’m reading and reviewing out of order.

Virgilia Wilde cannot afford to live in the city while she is sending her daughter Nan to art school in London, so she buys a cottage in the wilds of Wicklow. There she enjoys herself rambling the countryside and working on a children’s book about birds. However, she begins having strange experiences. First, she thinks she is seeing ghosts—a shadow in the doorway when no one is there, a telegram being delivered when one isn’t. She fears she is losing her mind so consults Dr. Franks, a psychiatrist. But he thinks there is nothing wrong with her. He consults his son Perry, who is a doctor with an interest in parapsychology, and eventually they realize that Virgilia is having visions of the future.

In the meantime, Nan has a frightening encounter with a sculptor and decides to come home for the summer while she works on illustrations for a book. Virgilia doesn’t want Nan to know about her visions, but soon she has some frightening ones.

This is a good little thriller with a supernatural angle to it. It has convincing characters and beautiful descriptions of the Irish countryside, reflecting the relative peace of Ireland during World War II.

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Review 1783: Himself

Mahony has been raised to believe that his mother abandoned him on the steps of an orphanage. However, when Sister Veronica, who hated him, dies, he finds out that he was left with a note telling him his true name, his mother’s name, and “she was the curse of the town, so they took her from you.” So, he travels to Mulderrig, County Mayo, to find out what happened to Orla Sweeney.

Mahony is an attractive young man, and at first he is warmly received despite his mid-70’s hippie rig. Soon, though, the word is out, and most of the townspeople want him gone. Orla was wild, a thief and a prostitute, and she just up and left. But he finds a few supporters who believe she was murdered: Mrs. Cauley, an impressive old actress; Bridget Doosey, the slatternly housekeeper for the nasty local priest; and Shawna Blake, who takes care of Mrs. Cauley.

And, although they can’t really help him, Mahony can see the dead. When he was a child he saw them, but they faded until he set foot in the town. There’s only one dead person he can’t see—Orla.

This is a peculiar, dark story. I loved it. I first read Kidd about six months ago, and she hasn’t disappointed.

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Review 1772: The Fall of Light

The Fall of Light is like all the Irish epics rolled into one, minus the gruesome murders. It’s the tale of Dierdre of the Sorrows applied to one family.

It’s the early 19th century, and Francis Foley is moving on again. Throughout his life, he has become angry at his fate and moved from one place to another. This time, he’s had a great argument with his wife, Emer, and she left the house. Now, he and his four sons are on the run, because he broke into the lord’s house, stole his telescope, and burned the house down.

They have been heading west, for Francis believes they will make their home on the Atlantic Ocean. But when they reach the River Shannon, Francis, always hasty, never to be denied, says they must cross it where they are without looking for a bridge or ford. They cannot even see the other side. And in that fateful crossing, Francis is swept away from his sons Tomas, the twins Finbar and Finan, and Teige, who is only 10.

One by one, the brothers lose each other, and the story becomes each one’s journey to find a family and a place in the world, through famine and terrific hardships. This is a lyrical, lush story that makes the journey of a family into a tale of mythic proportions.

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Review 1765: Brooklyn

It wasn’t until I finished reading Colm Tóibín’s latest novel on Sunday that I noticed no review for Brooklyn, which I was sure I had read. I looked back at my old records, and sure enough, I read it in March 2016, but mistakenly removed the flag from my notes that indicates I haven’t reviewed it yet. So, here goes.

Brooklyn is a quiet story set in post-World War II Ireland and New York. It is about the tension between yearning for home and desiring to make your own way in the world.

Eilis Lacey has finished a bookkeeping course and is eager for work, but the only job she can find in her small Irish home town is clerking at Miss Kelly’s store on Sunday mornings. Her brothers have emigrated to England for work, and the family is supported by her older sister Rose, who works as a bookkeeper. Rose wants more for Eilis, so she arranges for Father Flood, a visiting priest, to find Eilis a job in Brooklyn.

The best he can do for her is a clerk’s job in a department store, Bartocci’s. Eilis enjoys her job, but she is frightfully homesick and does not much enjoy living in Mrs. Kehoe’s boardinghouse. Reasoning that being busy will make her less homesick, Father Flood signs her up for courses at Brooklyn College.

Soon, she is making a new life for herself, doing well in her courses, and even finding a boyfriend, a cheerful Italian plumber named Tony. She is finally settling into her new life when something unexpected occurs that takes her back to Ireland and a choice between her two lives.

Written in Tóibín’s graceful prose, Brooklyn is a quiet but powerful character study and exploration of the immigrant experience in post-World War II America.

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Review 1703: The Searcher

Tana French has gone slightly afield from her usual dark mysteries in The Searcher. For one thing, this novel doesn’t involve the Dublin Murder Squad. For another, although morally murky, the novel isn’t as dark as most of the others.

Cal retired to Western Ireland from the Chicago police force, because he felt himself losing his moral certainty. He has purchased a dilapidated farm, which he is fixing up, and he has formed a sort of friendship with Mart, an older neighbor.

Lately, though, he feels like he’s being spied on. One night when he has that feeling, he climbs out the bathroom window and catches someone looking in the living room window, but the person gets away. A few days later, while he is working outside, he hears someone approach and tells him to come out. The person is a boy, about twelve, named Trey. Cal gives him work to do, and it takes about three visits before Trey tells him what he wants. His brother Brendan, 19, has disappeared. Trey has heard Cal is a policeman and wants him to find Brendan.

Cal soon believes that Brendan got involved with some bad people from Dublin, but no one will tell him anything. Then he finds himself being warned off by different parties. At the same time, someone is killing his neighbors’ sheep.

French likes to work in the gray areas of morality, and The Searcher continues this interest. I think it is one of her best.

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Review 1640: The Pull of the Stars

Julia Power is a maternity nurse in Dublin during the 1917 flu epidemic. The Pull of the Stars covers three days in her life on a small maternity ward for flu patients. With the hospital staff depleted because of illness and the matron away, Julia has only the help of a new volunteer, Bridie Sweeney, for most of the time. During this period, she has to cope with several emergencies and some deaths.

The novel appears to be knowledgeable about the state of medicine at the time and of the ignorance of the common people. One young woman expects to deliver her baby through her belly button, for example.

I found this novel interesting but curiously unsatisfying. I liked the characters Julia and Bridie, but no others are very fully developed. The plot seemed predictable and even a bit manipulative. I never know with Donoghue if I’m going to be blown away or relatively unmoved. This novel is timely, but that may make its content of very graphic medical details uncomfortable for some.

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Review 1629: The Guest List

A wild Irish island seems the perfect place for the wedding of Jules and Will. The only building on it is an old mansion that has been fabulously restored and is just big enough for the wedding party and the hosts, Aoife and Freddie. The high-society guests will be boated in the day of the wedding.

The bride and groom seem to be a golden couple. They are both physically attractive, and Jules runs a fashion magazine while Will is a rising star in television. However, someone in the wedding party is a sociopath who has ruined many lives, and future victims are on the guest list.

The novel begins in a tumultuous storm during the wedding reception when a waitress thinks she sees a body outside. From there it flashes back to the points of view of several characters beginning the day before the wedding. And the plot thickens.

I recently read Foley’s The Hunting Party and thought it was excellent. So, I was happy to read The Guest List. At first, though, it seemed awfully familiar—a remote island instead of a remote forest, the same kind of upper crusty characters. However, I was soon sucked in, because Foley is great with a suspenseful plot.

I did have one caveat. If there are several narrators in a book, they should not only have different concerns, which these characters do, but they should sound like different people. I don’t think Foley is quite so successful at that.

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Review 1620: Beatlebone

Judging by the description, Beatlebone is a novel I never would have picked up if not for my James Tait Black project. Often, these projects I’m pursuing have led me to discover wonderful books that I never would have thought to read, but this is not always the case.

Further, I think that reviewers sometimes get jaded, which causes them to give a book rave reviews just because it is different. Certainly, the newspaper and magazine reviewers raved about this one.

The premise is that John Lennon, in 1978, decides, in an attempt to renew himself, to visit an island he bought off the west coast of Ireland. He doesn’t want to be followed by the paparazzi, however, and he can’t remember exactly where his island is. He ends up being taken around by a man named Cornelius O’Grady, who hides him at his farm, takes him to pubs, and so on. During this time, Lennon has what are described on the jacket as surreal experiences.

The novel was lauded for its writing, and the writing is good, but it is full of Joycean monologues that sometimes go on for pages. One Goodreads reviewer mentioned that a novel needs more than good writing, and I’m with him there. I’m not one to say about a novel that nothing much happens in it if something else keeps my attention, but nothing much happens here, and what does happen, I didn’t have much interest in.

Several newspaper reviews mention Barry’s daring act of inserting himself into the novel. This act consists of inserting about 20 pages into the back end of the novel that would normally go in an Afterword. I found this section simply interrupted what little forward movement there was, as did a five-page rant at the end. The whole thing struck me as well-written fanboy fantasy.

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Review 1590: The Burning of Bridget Cleary

In 1895, a rural Irish woman, a milliner, was burnt to death by her husband and relatives. Their explanation was that the ailing woman had been taken away by the fairies and that they had burnt a changeling trying to get it to say it was not Bridget Cleary.

Historian Angela Bourke examines this crime in detail, not only the events as reported by the witnesses and the trial but the meaning of it. She interprets fairy legends and their place in rural Irish society, and she also explains the meaning of comments and actions the night of the crime and the night preceding it in terms of these legends. She looks at the crime from a feminist point of view as well.

I found this book interesting, although at times I felt Bourke got carried away with her interpretations. Most of the time the writing style and her analysis are interesting, but the book is occasionally a little dry.

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Review 1588: This Is Happiness

My first introduction to Niall Williams was his wonderful novel History of the Rain. That was so good that I confess to having found Four Letters of Love slightly disappointing, just because it wasn’t as good. This Is Happiness, however, is a gem of a novel.

As an old man, Noe Crowe recollects the summer when he was 17. He has been banished to the small village of Faha in West Clare County, because he left seminary school. While living with his grandparents, Ganga and Doady, he’s supposed to find his way back to God.

First, it stops raining, in a village where it always rains. Then Christie arrives to help install the electricity. Christie, we sense, is a charismatic individual with lots of stories to tell. He has come with a mission, and it’s not electricity. He has heard Annie Moonie lives in Faha, and he wants to apologize to her for leaving her at the altar 50 years before.

In the meantime, Noe, in a village studded with eccentric characters, finds he has fallen in love with Sophie Troy, the doctor’s youngest daughter, or is he in love with Sophie and Charlie Troy, or is it with Sophie, Charlie, and Ronnie, all three of the doctor’s daughters?

The novel starts out funny and charming and it just gets better. Hoorah for another fine book by Niall Williams.

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