I am intrigued by the continuing controversy over Aosdana's election to the office of Saoi of my cousin Francis Stuart, author of Black List. Francis is the cousin I didn't know I had, at least until last year. The family black sheep, the skeleton in the cupboard, he has been the family member that everyone found so hard to deal with that it was easier to deny his existence completely and since the war he has been written out of the family history, both in Burke's 1958 Landed Gentry of Ireland and in their 1978 Irish Family Records. It was not until I found the rather obscure 1930 family history "Three Hundred Years in Inishowen" by our mutual cousin Amy Young (nee Stuart) that I started to fill in the gaps and realised who he was. Francis has said (Irish Times,November 14, 1996, "Nothing But Doubt") that "the Stuart family, however, never forgave Francis's mother and blamed her for Henry's death." That's probably only a partial truth; rather, Henry's suicide shattered the family in ways that have resonated down the generations. The collective failure of the Stuart family, including, but not only, Francis, to integrate the trauma were surely a factor in the 1993 suicide of his and my cousin, travel writer Miles Clark, and so it continues. I confess I read Black List Section H at least in part neither as a literary masterpiece nor as a justification for Francis' wartime actions, but as a family history. Where he writes of how "he'd imagined his cousin Stella coming to his room at night to initiate him into the sexual mystery" I read of my godmother, later Stella Greer, who used to send me 5 quid at Christmas, and was said to be a bit of an old dragon. I presume she was the cousin whose love-letters Francis kept in the pigeon-holes of his roll-top desk at Rugby (Things to Live For (1934) ,page 17) and mentions again on the first page of Black List. And I suspect that, despite two marriages and a divorce, her cousin Francis was in some ways the unrecognised love of her life. I didn't meet her until she was eighty, but as Francis confirms, she must have been young once!

The claims against Francis of anti-semitism are a malicious nonsense. Francis's biographer J.H.Natterstad (Irish Writers series, 1974) notes that "There is no evidence whatever that he saw the Jew as part of an international conspiracy or as the incarnation of evil. Although he was not sympathetic to what he saw as the Jewish obsession with money, the Jew was, as the archetypal outcast, a natural ally and was treated as such in "Julie" (written in 1938, a year before he went to Germany). Natterstad also notes that at Rugby, "There were others, he discovered, who felt themselves outsiders, and they formed their own clique, which insulated them to some extent against the life around them: 'Well, we Irish and a Jew and a Pole,' he recalled, 'we made a little group, and it was good.' " Francis has said that "I have spoken and written several million words in my life. No one could ever point to a sentence of mine that was or is anti-Semitic." In fact he could go further than merely denying any expression of anti-semitism; he has firmly nailed his colours to the mast and they contain nary a shred of racial or other prejudice. The only circumstance in which I could imagine Francis being anti-Jew is if he went to live in Israel, when he would no doubt quickly identify with the downtrodden Palestinians.

But it should be remembered that Francis was not the only member of his family to spend the war in Germany, the other being his cousin's son, my uncle Bob Stewart-Moore. Bob,brought up on the same Queensland sheep station where Francis Stuart was born, and traumatised not by the suicide of Henry Stuart but by the accidental death an elder brother Henry Stewart-Moore, was in bombers, shot down over Germany and,rather than being "passionately involved in my own living fiction", as Francis Stuart claims to have been, spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war at Lamsdorf, some fifty kilometres from Auschwitz. He then walked 500 miles in three months through Poland and Germany in the middle of winter to freedom at the end of the war, eventually being picked up by American troops near Muhlhausen. The group of Australians with whom he was imprisoned recently published a book on the experience, titled "The RAAF POWS of Lamsdorf", which is certainly anything but fiction, and in it Bob recounts the experience of being shot down, crashing in the Elbe canal, getting out of the plane underwater, and being imprisoned by the Germans. Certainly a different way of entering Germany to that chosen by his cousin Francis! One can only hope that the account in Black List of Francis's meeting with a POW at Frankfurt is not a (heavily disguised) description of a wartime meeting with his cousin. The age is wrong, as is the nationality and the rank. In fact the flying boots are about the only thing that is right. But the overtly and quite unnecessarily sexual references he ascribes to Captain Manville are something that this encounter has in common with Francis's descriptions of his cousins Maida and Stella: Are they a device he has used to distance himself from a connection uncomfortably intimate? Do I read too much into this encounter, or are there some subjects too tough even for Francis Stuart's brutal brand of honesty? The Aosdána award seems richly deserved, awarded as it is on literary merit, and I congratulate him on it. But now that he has done the easy bit and made his peace with Ireland and the world, perhaps it's time Francis tried something a little more challenging, and started to reintegrate with his family, starting with Bob Stewart-Moore in Sydney? I would have given Francis a ten for a book that I found to be quite enthralling (and not only for the family connections), but subtract one point for what appears to be his apparent failure to confront this most difficult of issues.

Resembling both McEwan's Atonement and Frayn's Spies in its plot, this 1953 novel, recently reprinted, tells of a pre-adolescent's naive meddling in the love lives of elders, with disastrous results. Set in the summer of 1900, when the hopes and dreams for the century were as yet untarnished by two world wars and subsequent horrors, this novel is quietly elegant in style, its emotional upheavals restrained, and its 12-year-old main character, Leo Colston, so earnest, hopeful, and curious about life that the reader cannot help but be moved by his innocence.

Leo's summer visit to a friend at Brandham Hall introduces him to the landed gentry, the privileges they have assumed, and the strict social behaviors which guide their everyday lives. Bored and wanting to be helpful when his friend falls ill, Leo agrees to be a messenger carrying letters between Marian, his host's sister, and Ted Burgess, her secret love, a farmer living nearby. Catastrophe is inevitable--and devastating to Leo. In descriptive and nuanced prose, Hartley evokes the heat of summer and the emotional conflicts it heightens, the intensity rising along with the temperature. Magic spells, creatures of the zodiac, and mythology create an overlay of (chaste) paganism for Leo's perceptions, while widening the scope of Hartley's focus and providing innumerable parallels and symbols for the reader.

The emotional impact of the climax is tremendous, heightened by the author's use of three perspectives--Leo Colston as a man in his 60's, permanently damaged by events when he was 12; Leo as a 12-year-old, wrestling with new issues of class, social obligation, friendship, morality, and love, while inadvertently causing a disaster; and the reader himself, for whom hindsight and knowledge of history create powerful ironies as he views these events and the way of life they represent. Some readers have commented on Leo's unrealistic innocence in matters of sex, even as a 12-year-old, but this may be a function of age. For those of us who can remember life without TV and the computer, it is not so far-fetched to imagine a life in which "mass communication" meant the telegraph and in which "spooning" was an adults-only secret!

I first read The Go-Between in my English class in my last year of high school. Returning to the book some 20 years later, I found it an even richer text than I did as a schoolboy.

The author's use of the older Leo's retrospective narrative provides flexibility to alter recollections and timelines in a way that allows him to introduce symbolism to the text - the heat as a guage of the sexual relationship between Marion and Ted (he first notices its destructiveness at the moment he finds out of the true nature of their relationship by glancing at the unsealed letter) - the belladonna / deadly nightshade (even the two names provide contrasting meanings) as a symbol of Marion which he eventually destroys - phallic symbols such as the cricket bat and the gun for Ted (the latter which destroys him both physically and metaphorically).

Hartley's text is also a critique on the 20th century. The story is placed in 1900 and the great hopes of Victorian/Edwardian Britian - the progress of science, the progress of human society and the height of Empire. The shattering of Leo's life and hopes evokes the reality of the 20th century West. Denys and Marcus are killed in WW1 and the 10th Vicount and Vicountess Trimington by WW2. The signs are there at the time of the illusion of this sense of progress for the new century, with the frequent references to the Boer War and the disfigurement of Trimington.

There are some minor quibbles with the story. The emotional collapse of Leo seems disproportionate to what he saw - he may not have known what "spooning" was but he was aware of the intensity of Marion and Ted's relationship. However, it adds dramatic impact and does not detract from the brilliant integration of the text - its use of language, symbols and narrative patterns.

Leo, an old man in his sixties, is clearing through his old papers when he comes across his diary from the summer of 1900. On opening the diary, memories which he has burried for over fifty years come flooding back and he is forced to re-live the summer which changed his life for ever.The main novel is set in 1900 but the prologue and epilogue (post-World War II)form a framework to it.
The main themes of the novel are loss of innocence and the destruction of a 'golden age'. Leo's loss of innocence at the climax of the novel foreshadows the loss of innocence that Europe is about to suffer as the twentieth century unfolds. The emotional scars that Leo suffers are also a reflection on the world's inability to ever fully recover from the world wars.
The characters within the novel are highly effective because of their complexity - for example the reader is forced to question themselves whether Marian's manipulative nature is generated by selfishness or from the fact that she is incredibly miserably and desperatly trying to escape from her mother's social ambition.
The Go-Between is full of intense imagery including that of the belladonna plant which represents passion and female sexuality as something beautiful and highly desirable but ulitmately deadly.
The tragedy which ends the main novel is deepened by the epilogue which discusses the fates of all the characters within the novel and the way in which they appear to be 'cursed'. Whilst The Go-Between is by no means a cheerful novel, it is highly thought-provoking and provides a fascinating insight into the charmed life of the wealthly in Edwardian England before it was destroyed by the Great War.

I didn't really like Judge Eamon Redmond until I was almost through with this book. He certainly didn't show much emotion at all through most of the story. However, my whole attitude and judgement of him changed so much by the end of this engrossing story. When Eamon was very young he stood by silently and passively watching his father die (his mother was already dead), and then when he was older and a well-respected Judge, he watched as his wife Carmel die after having a stroke. Both of these dead's and there influence on Eamon's life are minutely detailed here. Eamon seems to be an intense and very lonely person. Yes, there is some attention given to his first girlfriend, and his children (who barely know their father) but the turning point, I think, is after Carmel dies. I think Eamon finally finds his heart, and the love he was too busy to recognize before. The ending is wonderful.

Colm Toibin has a way of beautifully describing family life and especially the landscape of Ireland. I learned a lot about Irish politics of that time, and how a judge makes his important decisions. A well-crafted novel from an author who has written many powerful books. I am always touched by his rich & moving novels.

Kirkus Reviews blurb reprinted above is absolutely foolish. This is a magnificent novel, but one which, as Tobias Wolff has said, "repays attention", i.e., one must be willing to give oneself over to Toibin's deceptively simple prose. The cummulative affect of the chapters, as a picture of a life, is devastatingly poignant, but this poignance will only come through careful attention. A quiet masterpiece.

The story of Eamon Redmond evokes an intense poignancy of loneliness and illustrates how this loneliness empties into the lives of those closest to him. It is a profound portrayal of constraint and struggle within those limits.

Like all the best travel writing, The Sign of the Cross makes you want to visit the places Colm Toibin visits. He travels to out-of-the-way spots throughout Europe, usually during religious holidays. Toibin interacts with both government officials and ordinary people and evokes a feeling for the churches and festivals in a way that makes you wish you were tagging along with him. The book is a combination of travelogue, history, sociology, and personal reminiscence. Toibin is funny and a great prose stylist. You don't have to be religious to appreciate his story.

This was an amazing book. Full of interesting facts and details. It made me want to visit...well nearly all of the places described by the author. If you are interested in Catholicism or European culture and politics, I would strongly urge you to read this book.

This is a great book to read while traveling (it just got me through a trip home on a weekend when winter storms had disrupted airline schedules throughout the entire U.S.!). The chapters are short and fairly self-contained, but each is well-written and engrossing. There's a lot of variety -- from fairly straightforward travelogues such as the accounts of the author's visits to Rome, to highly personal essays on his family and his belated coming to grips with his father's early death. And he's the only ex-Catholic author I've read who's accurately described that odd, characteristic combination of lack of belief in the Church's tenets with lingering reverence for all things Catholic: I'm a 'collapsed Catholic' myself, and I think he got it down exactly right. (Nostalgia for one's childhood is part of it, but it's certainly not ALL of it!) His discussions of Catholicism and the English are telling, and he makes some points about the Irish Catholic treatment of Protestants that most of us, raised as we are with a black-and-white (or, in this instance, orange-and-green!) view of the issue, have never considered. There's a lot here to think about as well as be entertained by, and I recommend the book without reservation.

This is my first nonfiction read by Toibin. I've read three of his novels and think he gets better with each one. THE BLACKWATER LIGHTSHIP was an altogether fine book and deserved the Booker Prize I think. So I couldn't wait to start this one. I confess that I'm not sure what is going on here. In the introduction Mr. Toibin presents some of his favorite artists. He says that he writes about "gay figures for whom, in the main, being gay seemed to come second in their public lives" writers who write in code, whose works are not published during their lifetime, who use vague pronouns in their poetry. (Certainly I wouldn't have wanted to miss a novel like "DEATH IN VENICE," for instance.) Toibin goes on further to say that writing this book helped him come to terms with his "own interest in secret, erotic energy," his interest in both Catholicism and Irish Protestants, his admiration for "figures who lived in a dark time and were not afraid," and his fascination with sadness and tragedy. Herein lives Mr. Toibin's problem. He takes on too much in too little space. Additionally his treatment of these artists he admires is wildly uneven, both in depth and space. For example, the chapter on Oscar Wilde covers almost 50 pages; the chapter on Mark Doty-- one of my favorite writers-- covers only 7. And for the life of me I'm not sure what Mr. Toibin is trying to say in the concluding chapter entitled "Good-bye to Catholic Ireland," a chapter I read twice. Like many Catholics who attempt to say what is wrong with their church, Mr. Toibin is too "tentative," a word he uses elsewhere in this book, in his taking on the church. Certainly he is not alone in his dilemma, however. It's easy for me to make that criticism, never having walked in a Catholic altar boy's shoes either. In Toibin's chapter on Elizabeth Bishop, we are told that "like all orphans, Bishop was clever at making friends and inventing a family for herself." I suspect that that statement is true for many people but for "all orphans"? I'm not sure that that is a true statement.

There is a lot to like about this book, however. Mr. Toibin is never dull and is best when doing a narrative, something we would expect from a fine novelist. For example, when he describes a party that both he and Almodovar attended in Madrid, I wanted to be there. When I finished this book, I wanted to reread James Baldwin and read for the first time both Elizabeth Bishop and Thom Gunn. Toibin is also good at giving us delicious trivia about people. For example, we learn that Francis Bacon slept with a dog the night before being examined for military service in order to exacerbate his asthma and flunk his physical.

I'm certainly glad I read this book and would read anything by this writer. I just don't think this book is as good as Mr. Toibin's fiction.

This retrospective from this award-winning Irish gay novelist is a very informative, enlightening, and opinionated reading for anyone, but especially gay readers, interested in gay literature. The author's aim was to write a book about a group of authors and their books that he read in his youth, that deeply influenced him, and that he discovered only years later were by gay authors. These authors became companions that had the same interests as he did. Toibin examines the lives of such authors as; Thomas Mann, James Baldwin, Roger Casement, and poets Mark Doty, and Thom Gunn. These authors are some of the most influential gay writers of our time, but some had to keep their sexuality hidden by choice or necessity. I enjoyed all of Toibin's examinations of these fine authors but after reading Toibin's chapter about Roger Casement's "Black Diaries", which were supposedly vivid records of his sexual partners, I'm still left wondering whether or not they really existed.

This book shows how deeply serious this author is about his love of books. You will walk away with an entirely new view of the life and work of these authors who have clearly influenced Toibin's life. It is a book that makes you think of your own favorite authors and how they have affected your life. This is a wonderful book, like no other I have read. Highly Recommended!

Joe Hanssen

Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s was a time of change and growth. Richard Garay lives with his ailing mother in Buenos Aires, where he cruises for sex with other men and works at a loathsome job. After the Falkland War, he comes into contact with two American diplomats who become the catalysts for Richard's own changes and growth. He finds better work, becomes more connected with the world at large, and later finds a man to love. But even in Argentina, the far-reaching tendrils of AIDS touch everyone. The last third of the novel becomes an eloquent testament to the power of love and hope, against all odds. In Tóibín's capable hands, what could have been a tedious story about politics becomes a wondrous journey of a man into the world at large through to the other side.

I picked up this book quite by accident assuming it to be a historical novel set in an Argentine backdrop. It had some of that but was much more. Using the years after the dictatorship of 1976-1983, the author begins the story focusing on a quiet unassuming young man who lives with his mother and just happens to be gay. For those who are anxious to learn more about the awakening of democracy, there is some of that. The dominant theme covers the US role in Argentina's changing political climate. However, as the book develops the reader finds the focus of the novel shifting gradually to the main character's sexual coming of age. The story moves quickly from political cocktail parties with the Argentine elite to furtive homosexual encounters in a Buenos Aires steam bath. As the reader follows the progression of events, the main character becomes a success both emotionally and economically. I found myself encouraging him on. It is easy to like this guy and hope that he can overcome the constraints of living with his aging mother in a culture that does not celebrate his sexuality. The sex scenes, both homosexual and heterosexual, hold the reader focused on the struggle that the main character is feeling. Ultimately the book shifts to the topic of AIDS. This was a disappointment as it introduced a theme written about so many times before and not necessary to the story's conclusion. Notwithstanding that, this book is very well written and held my interest from beginning to end. I would recommend it highly.

After reading & enjoying Colm Toibin's latest book, "The Blackwater Lightship", I decided I must read his other books. Again, I wasn't disappointed. I enjoyed this beautifully written novel as much as "The Blackwater Lightship." Colm's sentences are very long and full of details, and once you get use to his masterful style of writing you just can't stop reading. I think that's what I like most about his writing, that everything is brought to the surface, and no details are left out.

There are actually two main themes here, and they are combined beautifully. It's the story of Argentina during the Falkland Wars and its struggle for democracy & freedom, and the story of a gay man's coming of age who is also struggling to find himself, his place in life & real love. I think Richard Garay & Pablo's love for each other is beautifully developed in a very sensitive true-to life way. Although your heart may break by the end of this story you'll remember these characters long after you finish this book.

If you like a book that can take you away, make you happy, bring tears to your eyes, and teach you a lot about other people & their cultures, this book is definitely worth a read. This book is written with intelligence and was a sheer pleasure to read!

This was my first amble into the world of Colm Toibin and it was a plesent surprise. Faced with a less than thrilling title and grey cover, I didnt think it would make my heart ring.

Colm has created a book that I like to call a touch and smell book. From the opening I can feel the home and emotions like they are my own. From the warmth of the traditional Irish party to the love Lilly feels for her childern and husband, all so very real. Not the romantic view of family love but the true nature of love. Even Lillys estranged mother is not painted as a black character here. The complexity of the mother daughter relationship is so well written that one wonders if a male writer has ever painted this portraite so well?

Her brother is dying of AIDS but this is not the issue here. The issue is he is dying, for anyone who has ever coped with losing a loved one this drives into the very heart. If you are a wife, a mother a husband or a lover, or indeed just a man or woman who has loved, this book is one you take with you. Enjoy

This was my first exposure to Colm Toibin's writing and I really enjoyed it. This is a beautifully written novel set in the early 1990's in Ireland where three generations of very independent strong-willed women; daughter, mother, and grandmother, have come together to face the tragic illness of Declan who is dying of AIDS. Declan's sister, mother, and grandmother must each deal with this issue. However, what the story is really about is how they must first deal with a decade of estrangement from each other, and how they must now come to terms with each other and maybe become a family again. Is this possible? Or will Helen remain as cold to her mother as she has been the past 10 years? What is revealed about their past will answer these questions.

An easy read, but a story that's filled with lots of detail, emotion, and yes even love. I believe the story pivoting on Helen as the main character was well done. Yes, it could have dealt more with Declan's life and his friends, but that's not what the book was about. The women are the central point, and the author has done a wonderful job in a beautifully written story here. I look forward to checking out his other books now.

Quite simply, Colm Toibin's "The Blackwater Lightship" is the finest novel or memoir I've read by a critically acclaimed Irish or Irish-American author. He has a subtle, magical way with prose that will keep you thinking about the tale long after you've finished reading it. I am not surprised that this splendid little novel was short-listed for the British Booker Prize. It's one of the finest explorations of a dysfunctional family I've come across. I strongly commend Toibin for having the determination and talent to write well about AIDS, and making it an important, and sympathetic, part of this tale.

"The Blackwater Lightship" is primarily about Helen and how she becomes emotionally attached again to her mother Lily, when they are confronted with the news that her brother Declan is dying from AIDS. The story moves swiftly from Declan's hospital ward in Dublin to the seaside home of Lily's mother Dora, so Declan can enjoy one last glimpse of the sea. The tale also revolves around Declan's two male friends and their relationship with his sister, mother and grandmother.

Written in Toibin's (that's the way we spell it round my way) characteristically spare prose this account of a walk along the Irish border is by turns depressing, humourous and hopeful. It's written at a time when there seeemed to be no end to the conflict in sight, but it treats people on both sides of the divide with equally non-judgemental respect. It's a work of travel writing as much as political journalism, and he seems to find wildness and exoxiticsm in an area 300 miles away from where he was himself born.

The Penguin book of Irish Fiction is a fine way to sample a variety of works by Irish writers, ranging from an excerpt of Gullivers Travels by Swift to James Joyce's The Dead. Some short stories are included in their entirety, but most of the novels are excerpted from the originals, which is fine if you just want to sample various writers or decide where to go from here... While planning a trip to Ireland, I found this book to be a good one volume education in Irish Literature. In fact, with 1086 pages of very small print, I doubt I can finish it in time.

Spare and soothing, quiet and sadly moving. I really liked this book because it was haunting - the descriptions of Spain and the sadness of a woman watching the man she loves be destroyed by the SPanish Civil War. Quite good.