Nora Webster
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From one of contemporary literature's most acclaimed and beloved authors comes this magnificent 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. An incredible portrayal of the intricacy and drama of ordinary lives.
Set in Wexford, Ireland, and in breathtaking Ballyconnigar by the sea, Colm Tóibín'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, Tóibín 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. Tóibín 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 Tóibín is writing at the height of his powers.
About this Author
COLM TÓIBÍN is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of many novels, including The Blackwater Lightship, The Master, and The Testament of Mary, all three of which were nominated for the Booker Prize. The Master also won the International Dublin Literary Award, Le Prix du meilleur livre etranger, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction. Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Novel Award, and finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award, was made into an Oscar-nominated film in 2015. Nora Webster was a New York Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Folio Prize. He is also the author of many short stories and works of non-fiction. He mainly lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Reviews
Shortlisted for the Folio Prize
"There is no flash and dazzle in Tóibín's writing, just unobtrusive control, profound intelligence and peerless empathy that is almost shocking in its penetration. . . . A compassionate novel."
--Chicago Tribune
"Tóibín is rightly celebrated for his mastery of style and form. And if this is a book about grief then his prose is carefully crafted to mirror and complement his subject matter--just like the music Nora plays to shore up her sadness."
--The Independent (UK)
"A powerful study of widowhood and grief. . . . Tóibín shows brilliantly how Nora, imprisoned in her grief and her widowhood, becomes maddened by the tyranny of neighbours' condolences, and increasingly desperate to escape. . . . Tóibín's considerable narrative gifts successfully navigate the bumpy intersection of the private and the public. Through the slow personal reawakening of Webster, he finds a subtle way to reflect on Ireland's need to put its own grief into a larger context."
--Robert McCrum, The Observer
"There are few fiction writers whose words reach out to us from the very first sentences of a book, compelling our assent and our delight. Tóibín is one of these writers. . . . Reading down the first page of Tóibín's new novel, Nora Webster, I know that this novel is the real thing, rare and tremendous."
--Tessa Hadley, The Guardian
"A poignant reminder of a time when people responded to hardship with dignity instead of indignation."
--Washington Post
"Colm Tóibín is a master craftsman . . . and [Nora Webster] may actually be a perfect work of fiction. . . . You'll find it hard to pinpoint why it has you so shaken. Tóibín's made a choice, I think. He is not playing a post-modern, Calvinoan game; he's not out to make you ponder the ultimate artificiality of storytelling. No, this is something different: This is a writer making a stand for the beautiful plainness of life. . . . There is no pyrotechny in the writing--just compassion and shrewd insight."
--Los Angeles Times
"Nora Webster is simply a quiet, microscopically-observed character study of a recently widowed woman in the small Irish town of Wexford in the late 1960s, but as Tóibín proved in his previous novels Brooklyn and The Testament of Mary, the emotional lives of ordinary women can contain as much drama as any tale of war. . . . Readers who loved (or loved to hate) Elizabeth Strout's peevish heroine Olive Kitteridge will appreciate the vinegar-tinged humor and pathos of Nora Webster, too. . . . A deeply moving portrait of the flowering of a self-liberated woman, Nora Webster tells the story of all the invisible battles the heart faces every day."
--Boston Globe
"Much of the book's deceptively quiet drama has to do with Nora's gradual, subtle reawakening. . . . The last parts of Nora Webster are heart-rendingly transcendent. . . . Mr. Tóibín's prose often has an elegant, visceral simplicity as he describes the slight otherworldliness that Nora finds in her new, solitary life as a widow. . . . Tóibín lets Nora's solace lie in the piercing, abstract beauty of music and in a quotidian generosity that always eluded her. Nora Webster is ultimately the story of why such gifts come at such a high price."
--Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"It is precisely Tóibín's radical restraint that elevates what might have been a familiar tale of grief and survival into a realm of heightened inquiry. The result is a luminous, elliptical novel in which everyday life manages, in moments, to approach the mystical."
--Jennifer Egan, The New York Times
"Fascinating . . . Revelatory . . . More thoughtful than Emma Bovary and less self-destructive, in the end far and away a better parent than the doomed Anna Karenina for all the latter's dramatic posturing, Nora Webster is easily as memorable as either--and far more believable. To say more would spoil a masterful-- and unforgettable--novel."
--Betsy Burton, NPR
"The Ireland of four decades [prior] is beautifully evoked. . . . Completely absorbing [and] remarkably heart-affecting."
--Booklist (starred review)
"A compelling portrait . . . [of] a brave woman learning how to find a meaningful life as she goes on alone."
--Publishers Weekly
"Compelling . . . an emotionally satisfying read . . . powerful."
--Associated Press
"Toibin's restraint, sly humor and gentle prose cadence echo those of another Irish master, William Trevor. So does his affection for his characters. . . . How Nora chooses to make her voice heard and how her children find ways to express their own pain provide Nora Webster's plot and pleasure . . . a so-called average life can make for a thrilling read. . . . Toibin presents one woman's life keenly observed and honored with compassion. With Enniscorthy, he also creates a town, constrained and forever behind the times though it is, that feels like the whole world."
--Miami Herald
"Each paragraph of these pages rewards rereading, so deftly are they composed, and so full of pathos and insight."
--Claud Peck, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Richly detailed . . . Tóibín's slow pacing results in bright moments of beauty."
--The New Yorker
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