Review: “Nora Webster,” by Colm Tóibín

Nora Webster is one of four novels written by Irish writer Colm Tóibín that has been nominated for the Man Booker award. For me, it was the most difficult of his works to follow.(But, hey fellas, “Isn’t it about time this prolific writer wins something?”)

The reader starts out with Nora as she drives to Cush, where she and her husband Maurice have a summer cottage. Maurice has died, leaving Nora with four children to support, two older daughters, Fiona and Aine, who are away at prep school and two sons, Donal and Connor, still at home.

It is difficult for Nora to make decisions. She’s on the fence about selling the house, but it is a question of money. And then there’s the question about the car. Keep it? Buy a new one? Buy a marble gravestone for Maurice with whom she has so many wonderful memories of the summer house, and such wretched memories of his long and painfully lingering death, which she protected her sons from seeing. She sent them to stay with her Aunt Josie, where one of boys developed a disabling stutter. The other returned with nightmares and bedwetting.

Nora Webster is primarily a story about people not handling things very well, decisions taken by acting on whim. We learn about Maurice’s belief in the power of prayer and miracles, convictions that Nora doesn’t share but her sister Catherine and husband Mark do. At the book’s beginning, the narration presents Nora as if “she lived under water.”

Things change; the water subsides. Older son Donal develops an interest in photography, Nora develops political convictions. Tóibín wrote this book for an Irish audience. We foreigners need to do a little research on Fianna Fail and the role played by Charles Haughey in getting arms to the IRA. We are treated to the presence of a nun, Sister Thomas who hopes that things will be simpler in heaven. She had worked for Michael Collins. The book contains many points of humor, though I haven’t touched on any of them here.

Though I frequently found the book difficult to follow, it was filled with sympathetic characters. I liked it and its heroine who grows into her new life honorably.