What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill
English literature student Ali Sparrow is finding it difficult to make ends meet so she takes a sabbatical from university for a job as a “modern-day Mary Poppins” with a wealthy London family. The Skinners are delighted to have such an educated employee and they quickly come to depend on her efficiency in organising the lives of their four children. It’s Ali who discovers that the gibberish spoken by the 5-year-old twin boys is actually Filipino picked up from an earlier nanny, and she who spots the onset of an eating disorder in 15-year-old Izzy. As the glue that holds the busy family together, she feels at times as though she is invisible, especially when visitors and other family members largely ignore her. Bryony and Nick, while quick to reward her financially, give her very little time off to see her own family, and their casual attitude to money is in sharp contrast to her own modest upbringing. When the financial markets crash reverberates throughout the household, with life-changing consequences, Ali finally begins to piece together some of the things she has seen through her two years with the family. The chick-lit cover and slightly trite title don’t do justice to this layered tale of human complexities
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The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
It would be a shame for ‘The Art of Fielding’ to be ignored by a swathe of readers because of its strong association with baseball, and in truth the American ball game exists merely as an entertaining backdrop to the emotional action at the heart of this great novel. Henry Skrimshander is a skinny little player with a burning desire to play ball, but not much else going for him, apart from an uncanny ability to throw. When he accepts a place atWestishCollege, he is taken in hand by Mike Schwartz, who captains the baseball team and all but runs Henry into the ground in an attempt to build him into a playing superstar. Henry’s gay roommate Owen proves to be a good friend and excellent company for the lonely youngster, and he also remedies any deficiencies in Henry’s taste in clothing. Also keenly monitoring the travails of Westish’s once hopeless baseball team is college president Guert Affenlight, although it soon becomes obvious that his interest is not remotely inspired by sport. When a routine throw of Henry’s goes disastrously wrong, it has a devastating impact on the lives of the main characters. With Affenlight’s daughterPella– fleeing a marriage made in haste – filling the romantic female lead role, the scene is set for a showdown of epic proportions. A beautifully written meditation on love, life, sport and the human condition, ‘The Art of Fielding’ is well-deserving of the critical acclaim that accompanied its publication in theU.S.
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Please Look After Mother by Kyung-Sook Shin
A bit of an Irish mammy is So-nyo in that she has always put herself last when it comes to the needs and wants of her busy family. But now she is missing – having been separated from her husband in the rush hour melee at Seoul subway station, where they had arrived from the countryside to visit their children. Older and frailer than her five children remember her, and with a series of health problems that they have been too busy to notice, So-nyo is ill-equipped to deal with fending for herself in a city full of strangers and her family’s haphazard approach to locating her doesn’t help. As each of the now adult children remembers their mother at key points of their lives, they begin to realise how much they took her for granted and how much she sacrificed in order to ensure solid futures for all of them. Oldest son Hyong-chol recalls how she always saved the best food for him when he was studying, her rebellious middle child, now a writer, discovers that her illiterate mother went to great lengths to read her daughter’s first book, and her husband finds out what she has been doing with the money her children sent her every month. A lovely meditation on motherhood and gratitude.
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The Sealed Letted by Emma Donoghue
Those introduced to Emma Donoghue through her best-selling Room may be a little surprised to find that her newest book is light years from that starkly chilling contemporary tale of survival against all odds. With The Sealed Letter, Donoghue has gone back to her historical roots. But for all that it is set in the 1860s, this is an age-old story of a crumbling relationship, jealousy and the bottomless hunger for revenge experienced by those who are scorned. Inspired by a real-life society divorce that scandalised the society of its time, the novel also features the women’s movement that was slowly starting to take hold. At the heart of the tale is the manipulative and selfish Helen Codrington, whose obsessive affair with a young army officer will eventually bring about the end of her marriage. Drawn into the conspiracy is Emily Faithfull, an old friend of Codrington’s and, despite her own independent business life, easily deceived. Drawing on newspaper accounts from the case, Donoghue has fashioned a gripping story that just goes to prove there is very little that is new about tales of the heart.
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Contact Information:
Darina Molloy, Castlebar Central Library, John Moore Rd, Castlebar, Co. Mayo.Email: dmolloy@mayococo.ie Phone: +353 (0)94 9047953
