Nora Webster Synopsis
From one of contemporary literature's most acclaimed and beloved authors comes this magnificent new novel set in a small town in Ireland in the 1960s, where a fiercely compelling, too-young widow and mother of four moves from grief, fear, and longing to unexpected discovery. Toibin's portrayal of the intricacy and drama of ordinary lives brings to mind of the work of Alice Munro. Set in Wexford, Ireland, and in breathtaking Ballyconnigar by the sea, Colm Toibin's tour de force eighth novel introduces the formidable, memorable Nora Webster. Widowed at 40, with four children and not enough money, Nora has lost the love of her life, Maurice, the man who rescued her from the stifling world she was born into. Wounded and self-centred from grief and the need to provide for her family, she struggles to be attentive to her children's needs and their own difficult loss. In masterfully detailing the intimate lives of one small family, Toibin has given us a vivid portrait of a time and an intricately woven tapestry of lives in a small town where everyone knows everyone's business, and where well-meaning gestures often have unforeseen consequences. Toibin has created one of contemporary fiction's most memorable female characters, one who has the strength and depth of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. In Nora Webster, Colm Toibin is writing at the height of his powers.
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Colm Toibin Press Reviews
'A profoundly gifted world writer.' Sebastian Barry
'A widow gets her life back in a novel pulsing with warmth and vitality ... It is memories from Toibin own early years, played over with a mixture of irony and nostalgia, warmth and lack of illusion, which give this enthralling novel about someone gradually retrieving her life its distinctive quality' Sunday Times
'Tender, delicately oblique in its narration, and exquisitely well-written' The Times
'A luminous, elliptical novel in which everyday life manages, in moments, to approach the mystical ... There is much about Nora Webster that we never know. And her very mystery is what makes her regeneration, when it comes, feel universal' -- Jennifer Egan New York Times
'Beautiful and heartbreaking. It's so richly detailed and laced with such dialogue that you feel like you are living in Nora's world' Independent
'Arresting. As this novel movingly proposes, there are no ordinary women and no ordinary lives' Irish Indendent
The story is so expertly crafted that it achieves a luminous intensity, which lingers long in the memory' Mail on Sunday
'Toibin is a master at evoking emotions with particular sensitivity ... This is a beguiling story that envelops readers like Irish mist. The slow unhurried narrative keeps pace with Nora's grief and changing emotions. By the time she is ready to cut the last ties to her husband, Toibin has woven the complex threads of family life into a portrait of a much-loved woman' Daily Express
'This novel deserves to be read as closely as Nora listens to Beethoven. It leaves you with much to ponder ... Our bond with the Websters makes us imagine they're out there, living and longing, with fire crackling in their hearth' Guardian
About Colm Toibin
Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of eight novels including Blackwater Lightship, The Master and The Testament of Mary, all three of which were nominated for the Booker Prize, with The Master also winning the IMPAC Award, and Brooklyn, which won the Costa Novel Award. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. His most recent novel is Nora Webster. He lives in Dublin.
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