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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love, Family, AIDS and Dysfunction,
By
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This review is from: The Blackwater Lightship: A Novel (Paperback)
Helen O'Doherty lives in Dublin with her husband and two sons. She is a school principal and set with her life. She is happy and even though she may be a bit more reserved in her marriage than her husband would like, all seems well. When school is over she and her hubby plan a large party in their new home to celebrate. Her husband and children will go the next day to visit relatives, and Helen will follow when she clears up her end of school issues. Helen worries about her life and her children. Are they too needy? Is it right that the youngest needs his parents so thoroughly? Helen seems to be a thoroughly modern woman of the 90's- ready to live her life. Helen's family is off and she is ready to go to school when a friend of her brother, Declan, arrives to tell her Declan is seriously ill and needs to see her. And so it goes.. Paul, Declan's friend tells her he has AIDS and has been ill for quite a while. He does not have a serious relationship right now, and he does need a place to go to recuperate. It is decided by Declan that he wants to go to Grandmother's house, but first, would Helen tell Grandmother and mom, Lily about his disease?No small deed is this one...Helen has had an on -again off-again relationship with her mother and grandmother for years. In fact, she has only seen them at Christmas time, but neither was invited to her wedding nor have they met her family or children. How will she tell them, what will they say and how will they react? Oh, no, what to do... Mom- Lily, Helen, Paul and Larry, Declan's friends all move into grandmother's house in a desolate spot on the ocean near the Blackwater Lightship. This place and house has particular meaning to the family-they were brought up here. Lily, the mom as a child; Helen and Declan when they father got sick and died and mom left them, or abandoned them, as Helen and Declan remember. This dysfunctional family now has a chance to reclaim their lost relationships. Paul and Larry are gay, as is Declan, and as they reveal their lives, the lives of the others come into semblance. The living and the dying , the coming and the going, the new and the old all take on extra meaning. Colm Toibin has written a marvelous study of a family entwined in the everyday business of living and dying in his book "The Blackwater Lightship: A Novel". The relationships in this family are not unusual, but so well written in such a cleverly calm but studied manner. Colm Toibin's knowledge of the clinical process of AIDS is well revealed and accurate. You feel like you are in the midst of Declan's fevers and
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quietly sensitive and enduring piece of work,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Blackwater Lightship: A Novel (Paperback)
Colm Toibin's "Blackwater Lightship" is arguably the dark horse in this year's Booker Prize race. The three generation family drama at the heart of this deceptively slight novel may not set any sparks flying but chances are you'd still be thinking of it long after the story has ended and settled into a warm afterglow. Toibin is an unflashy writer. He aims straight for your heart and succeeds in a disarmingly off-the-cuff way. The opening chapters have a luminous quality about them that sets the tone for Helen's subsequent encounter with her mother (Lily) and grandmother (Dora). The event that brings three generations of feuding mothers and daughters together is Declan's terminal illness from AIDS. In caring for and trying to make peace with the dying Declan, they resolve their differences with each other in a chillingly unsentimental and cold eyed manner. Ironically, the characterisation of the three women at the centre of Toibin's novel are a little weak and indistinct compared to Paul and Larry (Declan's friends) who spring to life as the story unfolds. Declan, however, remains little more than a catalyst. His part is curiously underwritten. Tuskar Rock and Blackwater Lightship, two lighthouses out at sea, one still working, the other not, are deeply symbolic of the choices facing the feuding family members. They can either decide to close the chapter and get on with their lives or continue to nurse their wounds privately and watch them fester. The recurring image of the landslide eating into their neighbour's house is also a powerful metaphor for the corrosion of family relationships. "Blackwater Lightship" is a sensitive and quietly enduring piece of work that will surely touch you. The final chapters including an unlikely one with Helen and Paul baring their souls to each other, are absolutely devastating. This is literary fiction of the finest quality that deserves to be read. Not to be missed.
26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Prepared to be amazed.......,
By
This review is from: The Blackwater Lightship : A Novel (Hardcover)
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
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