It was St Patrick’s Day on Monday, and that’s given me an excellent excuse to think about books set in Ireland for today’s Recommendsday post.
I’m going to start with Molly Keane’s Good Behaviour. This is on of those books that I bought basically it was in a lovely Virago Hardback and the plot summary appealed to me. It was nominated for the Booker when it came out in 1981 so it’s also a rare example of an award-nominated book that I actually enjoyed! Anyway this is the story of Aroon St Charles, the daughter of an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family now falling (if not fallen) into decay. Although it starts when Aroon is nearly 60, most of the book is set years earlier in the 1910s and 1920s – and its mostly about the conflict between her and her mother. There’s a fair bit of decoding to do about what it actually going on and part of the beauty of the book is that you’re never quite sure if Aroon knows what’s going on and is being deliberately obtuse or if she really is that oblivious. Definitely worth looking for – if you want a longer and much more erudite review of it (with spoilers) then here’s on from the London Review of Books. I’m pretty sure I’ve got at least one of her other books sitting on the shelf waiting to be read – I really should get around to that!
A different sort of mid-century Ireland now, and Maeve Binchy. I read my way through a lot of these when I was a teenager when her books seemed to be everywhere, but in the decade and a bit since she died that seems to have changed. I think Tara Road is usually the one that gets talked about – but I think Light A Penny Candle was my favourite, but that may be because I read it at the same time that I was going through a huge phase of reading sagas (Barbara Taylor Bradford! Elizabeth Jane Howard! )and it gave me similar vibes to that – I haven’t read it in years and I do wonder if I would feel the same way now, or whether adult Verity would go for Scarlet Feather or something else entirely.
I was slightly older when I started reading Marian Keyes, but not *that* much older – I think my sister read her first and passed the books on to me – because our copy of Last Chance Saloon was definitely the original UK paperback one. Keyes is funny and smart but she’ll also break your heart – all her books deal with difficult issues, often including addiction and depression which she herself has experienced and spoken about very movingly. I’ve got a bit behind over the years, but Keye’s iconic Walsh Sisters series is being adapted for TV at the moment, so maybe this is the time for me to catch up.
Another Irish author who will break your heart is Anna McPartlin. I’m also behind with her books, but The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes and Somewhere Inside of Happy were both books of the week back in the early days of the blog – both of which reduced me to tears, in either trains or hostel rooms. I’ve definitely read a lot less books that I think are going to make me cry in the years since the start of the pandemic, because I’ve prioritised happy endings and closure in my reading amid the uncertainty of the world in general, but if you are more resilient than me, I do recommend her.
And that’s it for today – have a good one everyone.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 