Customer Reviews

Almost There The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman

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"I think you can be born homesick. I think you can have a dislocated heart. No place will do. The most wonderful home in the world full of the most love wouldn't be enough for you - you'd keep looking around for where you belong." The "you," of course, is O'Faolain herself, a restless soul still searching for - love? contentment? self-assurance? - still hungry as she reaches 60, her professional life materially validated by bestsellerdom and floods of heartfelt (often heartbreaking) letters from readers of her first memoir, "Are You Somebody?"

Readers of AYS who were swept up by the intimacy and energy of O'Faolain's voice, the unvarnished honesty of her brutal stories of childhood, her hard-won place in Irish journalism and her ongoing, episodic search for love, will find the same frank passion in this second book. Written after the success of AYS and her first novel, "My Dream of You," "Almost There" muses on the changes acclaim has brought - financial security, prestige, Italian holidays and writing sojourns in Manhattan. She describes the writing of the novel and the lover she had at the time - nearly illiterate, married, elderly and secretive - with a clear-eyed distance that combines rueful, wry self-knowledge with raw passion. She shows where she borrowed from real life for her fiction, she tells how AYS affected relationships with friends and old lovers, whose versions differed, sometimes, sharply, with her own. "I hadn't realized before I wrote AYS that I for one need constantly to relearn a simple thing - that I do not understand other people as they understand themselves."

There's a great deal in this vein, how "the memoir changes its own conclusion by virtue of being written." And there are the things that haven't changed - a deep vein of self-perpetuating loneliness, and, in contrast, an optimistic certainty of her capacity to change. And in the end, she leaves us curious, as she did at the end of AYS - does she work things out with her lover's child? Does she persevere this time?

And there's much reflection on age, on how the shortness of time reduces options. Nothing earth-shattering there, but O'Faolain's breath-catching fierceness makes it feel fresh. Fans will love this book and hope for another installment. Newcomers I'm less sure of. There's so much that reflects and illuminates her previous books that new readers will either search those out immediately or lose interest halfway through this one. Cranky, acerbic, sometimes pathetic, O'Faolain possesses the ardor of youth and the (sometimes) wisdom of age.

Some years ago, while traveling in Ireland for the first time, I was struck both by how lush the country was --- as green, if not greener, than I've seen in all the tourism ads --- and by how the landscape was even more inspirational than this novice writer could have imagined. I remember commenting to my then boyfriend that it is no wonder that great writers have sprung from these verdant hills, like so many lambs from the loins of the nation's ubiquitous sheep. From Shaw, Joyce and Wilde to contemporaries Maeve Binchy, Frank McCourt and Roddy O'Doyle, the country boasts a herd of "greats," skilled storytellers and writers. Nuala O'Faolain has earned a place at the head of the contemporary herd, first with ARE YOU SOMEBODY and now in the continuing memoir of her life, ALMOST THERE.

Subtitled "The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman," ALMOST THERE could just as easily have been titled "The Inward Journey of a Dublin Woman." O'Faolain writes in the best tradition of her Irish predecessors. Rarely sentimental or sappy, she pauses at moments in her life to reflect, to share snapshots of her history with more than just a beautifully descriptive narrative. She offers feeling that is raw, honest and often painful to read. Her story, exposed in the two volumes, is an inward look, a rich and insightful recollection of a life sometimes lonely, sometimes disappointing --- and all tied together in often lyrical language, reminiscent of her native tongue and the magic of her homeland. And lest I forget, she wields a national irreverence, a sometimes dark sense of humor so resonant of the Irish.

In ALMOST THERE, O'Faolain retells the six years that have passed since her first memoir, while going back in time on occasion to incidents that helped to inform her present self. She finds in her later years that there are still lessons to be learned from earlier moments, even from earlier gaps: "...there had been great holes in my ordinary knowledge of the world. Some very simple things have been late discoveries, which is a reward, in a way, for having lived wrong. A lot of people who were better at managing life begin to find it dull at this age."

But for O'Faolain, middle age, albeit trying, is a time of discovery --- friendship, for instance. It is in her mid-fifties when she realizes that she needs to create a "circle" about herself. She finds love again and marvels at it as if it were the first time. She compares middle age to being a teenager again: "Middle age is the least talked about of all the seasons of life, and yet it is the most exacting. It is adolescence come again at the other side of adulthood - its other bookend - in its uneasiness of identity, its physical surprises, and the strengths it takes to handle it."

O'Faolain has the unmistakable voice of generations of her countrymen and women. Impassioned and pained, exhausted and rejuvenated, she writes from a heart swelled by the mourning of the passage of time and tempered by the glorious anticipation of times ahead. I can hardly wait for the third installment of her life.

--- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara

Enthusiastic Recommend: Almost There by Nuala O'Faolain
This is a memoir of six years in the life of a woman in her 60s. It's her story of struggling with her past, with the long series of things that shaped her into something that she decided she did not want to be. So she changed. O'Faolain's life is nothing like mine - not even remotely like mine. She's Irish. She suffered as a child from the neglect of a drunken mother. She's never been married, has no children. She earned her living being a journalist. She's not really athletic, and that doesn't bug her. One of the few things we have in common is that we both love dogs. But she also goes for cats, which I can take or leave. And yet so much of what she wrote resonated, spoke to me, got me to say right out loud, "Yea, wow, that's it." It's a wonderful read for anyone who thinks it's too late for ... well, for anything. O'Faolain shows that it's never too late. We've all suffered, physically and emotionally. Some more than others, Nuala more than I. But she demonstrates that there is always a way to strike out on a different path if you are willing to work at it. And though it's not easy, there's progress, not always in a hurriedly straight line, but it's there and it's substantial.

In some odd twist, I read Nuala O"Faolain's first book while on my honeymoon in England. At a time of great happiness in my life, the pain of loneliness and disconnection in hers was a bold whisper for me to be grateful my the blessings. I later read "My Dream of You" and again was struck by the lack of connection and depth.

However, reading "Almost There" and getting a glimpse into the thought processes behind the books as well as the repercussions from the publishing of both books, the dots have been connected for me about this author. She has several poignant passages discussing the roles of adult children in large, dysfunctional families, how she wallowed in grief over another failed relationship and how she worked to put words together to create her columns and books. It's fascinating insight, particularly for someone this side of forty.

But like all artistic temperments, Nuala has her faults. And shamelessly she puts them out there, causing me many moments of mental flinching, ashamed for her selfishness and immaturity. Regardless, they are real, and this author is nothing if not honest.

So, I trust her when she talks about life and love in her 50s, and how her perspectives have shifted when she has fewer years to spare now... and with that you have to take the brutal honesty of her shortcomings as well.

This is a book I will encourage my women friends to read -- there are many lessons here, and they are told beautifully with gorgeous prose. Definitely worth the investment of time to read.

Nuala O'Faolain is completely frank and honest without sacrificing elegant prose... sa memoirist unconcerned with image. Her experiences take on a universal quality--I'm not a fifty-something Irish writer whose parents were miserable together (one cold, the other alcoholic) when not being charming. Yet in her descriptions of fear, loneliness, hope I find myself feeling singing "she's killing me softly with her song."

This is no feel-good "How I overcame bad times" memoir in which the heroine is homeless/battered/deathly ill but survives "with a little help from my friends." Nuala recounts successes, mistakes, bad judgement, anger, joy without ever portraying herself as a victim. And the result is that her story lands in your gut.

Few writers would admit worrying about the cat being lonely if she went out for an evening-- they'd be too self-conscious and worry about looking pathetic. Not Nuala. The result is that she wins us over utterly.

This book opens with a great deal more joy than her other books (the wonderful memoir Are You Somebody? and the novel My Dream of You). She recounts with wonder the unexpected success of her memoir and the opportunities it brought her-- the waves of approval from TV talk-show audiences, the trip to New York where she met Frank McCourt, the money. But it didn't ultimately protect her heart from a painful end to a long-standing lesbian relationship, a one-sided affair with a married man, and a troubled relationship with a man she met on line, whose little girl Nuala had to struggle not to resent.

I heard O'Faolain read at Colliseum books New York, and she recounted how in Dublin, everyone criticized her for having had an affair with a married man (who, to be fair, did not ever tell her he was married until very very late in the game) while in America, people were shocked at her attitude to the child. Yet in both, O'Faolain is nothing more than honest. Who hasn't felt jealous and wished they didn't? O'Faolain is never malicious, vindictive or cruel.

She writes with candor about being down-and-out inside, though material circumstances look well. She's an inspiration in every way-- she gives the reader permission to empathize, to say, "yes, it's like that, and she survived, and I can too". You don't have to have a terrible illness or crushing poverty to have legitimate feelings of despair, and O'Faolain is proof that they can be overcome-- with grace.

And her prose is terrific. Simple without being simplistic, somehow she turns a riff on 9/11 to a consideration of voting in Africa.
She's a real writer, and one for the ages-- her main focus is on herself, but her gaze takes on all humanity.

Nuala's new work is a glowing gem. It is a secret and raw look into the life behind the covers of her first memoir. She shines a bright light on her path to recovery from a broken childhood, into world wide success and then into a new reality where more intimate goals are challenged and reached.

Nuala is totally unafraid of presenting all of herself to the world. Including her cruelties, frailties and fears as if to say, Here I am. Here is my world. My path isn't always clear and without stumbling. Her unending wit, charm, strength, humor and candor endear her to me.

Her total commitment to searching for the truth in the chaos of life with all its emotions and issues is brave and unrelenting. Only Nin matches the level of intimacy shared to readers. She speaks of issues few if any writers have the bravery to tackle. What I loved about this work is its total lack of pretension, its honesty and compassionate seeking of the truth. She paints the real picture, which deeply touches my soul.

Today's world is not the cookie cutter vision of family happiness that was promised. She has the bravery to speak about challenging subject matter with a human voice. And a beautiful voice at that.

Nuala O'Faolain is so vivacious, so funny and filled with life, so honest in her writing that I find I can't put her books down, and yet I find I'm either laughing or cringing, one or the other, depending on the page or the paragraph. I swing violently from pro to con as I read anything she's written; in this memoir, she spends so much time celebrating (it sounds often like bragging) about the success of her last memoir, and then confesses, horribly, about the dark side of her feelings against the young daughter of the man she's in love with. But she is also insightful and brilliantly observant and filled with hope. I don't think I've ever been so compelled by a writer and at the same time, repulsed. It's her narcissism that makes her books so compulsively readable, combined with genuinely gorgeous writing. I can't wait for the next one, and I'll laugh and cringe some more.

This moving, thought provoking, warm, witty reflection by Irish journalist Nuala O'Faolain become an intimate conversation with a friend as it is read in the author's inimitable voice.

"...I believed myself a failure....., " Ms. O'Faolain opines. "I hadn't acquired any of the usual rewards of the middle of life - I didn't have anyone to love or to love me. I had no child, no other achievement, no money. I quietly drank a bit too much wine every night."

These words follow the break-up of a 14 year relationship with Nell, an Irish feminist. Despairing of ever maintaining a loving relationship, Ms. O'Faolain seeks solace in reading, classical music, an adopted mongrel pup, and, of course, her work.

Throughout "Almost There" is a recurring theme: the search for love. Following Nell Ms. O'Faolain embarks on an affair with Joseph, an unlikely paramour if there ever was one. He is an ordinary older man with silver hair, a married truck driver who left school at 11, and found no need to be literate.

Joseph is succeeded by John, a Brooklyn lawyer whom she met through an online dating service. She is now 61. He is twice divorced, the father of an 8-year-old daughter. Of her late-in-life new love she remarks that it is a time when "good things matter to their fullest extent, because you know exactly how rare they are."

Some material found in "Are You Somebody" is revisited in this follow-up memoir. She reiterates the price to be paid for speaking out in a country that "put the lid on things." For the Irish, she writes, "Silence was the defensive strategy of a people who did not believe situations can be changed and did not imagine they could ever get away from each other...."

And there again is the crux of the matter: the belief that she will forever be haunted by her mother's neglect. With the book's closing lines the author paints an imaginary reunion: her mother is sitting on a barstool, and moves over to make room for her daughter. Just as she does Ms. O'Faolain turns her back and walks out the door.

"Almost There" is rich, passionate, and ribboned with sadness. It is an uncommon examination of human longing and loneliness often sparked by Ms. O'Faolain's wry, self-effacing humor. It is tribute to a country written and read by one still searching for her home.

- Gail Cooke

After reading Are You Somebody?, readers have high expectations of O'Faolain's continued memoirs. Much of this book focuses on the changes in her life brought by the success of the first book. She describes the travel, the attention, the money, and the first glimmers of contentment.
The six years covered in this book were less inspiring to me than her first one. I can relate to her struggle to shed the family baggage and find satisfaction in life. I can empathize with her fears and reconciliation with growing older. Her descriptions of places and people and her inner thoughts resonate with me. Still overall it feels more forced, less fluid and ultimately less satisfying than Are You Somebody?. When her next book is published, I'll want to read it to see how her struggle with life, love and family and loneliness evolves.

Yes, ma'am, this `analyze my life and then tell-all' book seems like the sort of fare on which Oprah could chew for several shows. It was ready-made for her book club and would have instantly been embraced by her angst-loving fan base, but somehow it stayed outside that sort of recognition. But that's not a cheap shot, I mean it, this is a book for those who like the sort of reading material common in Oprah's book club. So Oprah readers, go get this!

I don't know if I was supposed to, exactly, but I found this book gloomy, and mostly only liked the rare parts where Irish Times writer Nuala O'Faolain wasn't speaking so personally. Her reports on the state of Northern Ireland, her experiences in America (page 195, " 'America' was always the word for promise." Boy have I ever heard that before...) the compare and contrast moments that dealt with Ireland in relation to other places she's been, these were a lot more likely to hold my interest, I found, than her oft-murky forays into her own allegedly bleak childhood, her controversial romantic life, or her stark realizations at her own failings, failures, and foibles.

Still there's something endearing about a woman whose best mate is her dog, Molly, and whose singlemost passion in life seems to be her readiness to delve into self-deprecation as if it is also her salvation.

I don't regret reading Almost There, but I don't plan on seeking out any of Nuala O'Faolain's other published books, either.