Not so long ago, David Lodge and Colm Toibin published novels about Henry James in the same year. Toibin's garnered all the prizes and attention, while Lodge's languished unfairly in its shadow. Lodge's Author, Author! sparkled - intimate with its subject and masterfully told, at least as good as The Master. Then, when Toibin's The Testament Of Mary was short-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, I couldn't help but compare it to our own C.K. Stead's 2006 novel, My Name Was Judas. By comparison Toibin's was slight and mannered.
In other words, I confess I approached Nora Webster with preconceptions, even prejudices, of which I have been cured. This is Toibin's 10th novel, also historical but set much more recently, in 1960s and early 70s Ireland.
The titular character lives in the town of Enniscorthy in County Wexford. Toibin is far more at ease in this familiar territory. The reader is transported to a time when The Troubles are surging - the British Army is killing protesters at peaceful demonstrations in Londonderry, the British Embassy in Dublin is burning down, the Special Branch make hundreds of arrests.
The burning of the embassy is as close as The Troubles come to Nora. They are a kind of worrying backdrop to her own tribulations. As the novel opens she is recently widowed, left with two young sons and anxious about how she will survive - there are also two older daughters, one away working, the other at university nearby in Dublin, still partially dependent on their mother.
Younger son Donal has a worsening stammer; he's a sensitive boy grieving quietly and deeply for his father. Locals are too enthusiastic in offering her their condolences, family and neighbours intrude when they're not wanted - her sisters Una and Catherine, the next-doors Tom and Margaret, various aunts, friends and townspeople.
