The jury is out on this one. I don't want to be disrespectful to one of Ireland's best-loved literary son's but I'm not sure I get what all the hype, the lauding and the praise is about.
This is an average novel. It's also one of those titles that reel you in but have little to do with the narrative. It may as well have been called 'The Trouble With Slippers' or 'The Fountain At Fanore' for all the relevance it had to the dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships, the suffering of a young man from AIDS and the attitude of the Irish Church to homosexuality that this book portrayed. Toibin's style is stripped-back and at times I felt I was reading one of his other novels, 'Nora Webster' within which the child characters and their maternal relationships seemed analogous to Helen & Declan's.
That apart, this is a story about the search for unconditional acceptance by a family that has grown apart. When Helen's brother Declan asks to spend his final weeks at his grandmother's ramshackle cottage by the sea, three generations of women are forced to confront each other after many years apart. It's a clash of country versus city when they're joined by two of Declan's friends from Dublin who've been caring for their dying friend for years, unbeknownst to his family. Thrown together for a week in a small house, things are bound to kick-off: tempers fray, old wounds are gouged open, prejudices are thrashed out and everything finishes as flatly as it began.
However, readers will relate to this novel and its characters. Despite the inherent isolation both metaphorically & geographically, there is humour, high-drama, sadness, regret, love and a tentative resolution.
Moreover, I'm not giving up on you Mr. Toibin! I've got 'Brooklyn' in my sights and I'm sure I'm going to love it :)