This is a outstanding and beautiful read, of life, the joys, love, loss, grief, relationships, sex, laughter, the thrills and heartbreak, a book I highly recommend. I loved this from beginning to end, savouring every word, the stellar characters of the women, astounding, battling the world, providing protection from the censorious, showing us what a family could be and what it may not be. One of the major highlights of Ryan's novels is his spellbinding lyrical prose, and then there is the dialogue that shines in his beguiling storytelling here. Eileen's family rejected and ostracised her, her brother Richard a real horror, a contemptible piece of work, a depiction of the poison, meanness and spite in the world.
Josh and Honey become godparents to Pearl, there is Chris's surprising marriage to Doreen, Eileen's protective headbutting incident and Paudie's connections with the IRA. There is Eileen, her dead husband's mother, Nana, her daughter, Saoirse, on occasions joined by Honey and Kit and Josh’s mother Moll, and Moll’s friend and alleged lover Ellen Jackman, and Doreen, all overflowing with love for Saoirse's almost immaculately conceived daughter, 'Pearl, the perfect little queen, fat with love.' Ellen Jackman says 'Aren’t we the queerest coven that ever stirred a pot?' Yes, from Strange Flowers we have Kit Gladney and the return of her prodigal grandson and writer, Joshua, arriving with his girlfriend Honey. In the Aylward home it is said 'You only get one life, and no woman should spend any part of it being friends with men.
The novel is constructed of short chapters that provide a series of vignettes of the dramas of life, a vibrant picture painted of family and community, the tragedies, comedy, birth, love, loss, judgementalism and murderous impulses. All the Aylward women have a deep abiding love for each other, but you could be forgiven for not seeing just how mad they are about each other, you would have to see beyond the abusive and loud foul mouthed rancour and conversations that might be overheard by neighbours and other outsiders. Donal Ryan exquisitely explores an Irish family, four generations of women living together through the years in a small house on an estate in rural Tipperary, outside the town of Nenagh.
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