Hood [Paperback]

Emma Donoghue (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1998

SUNDAY

Mayday in 1980? heat sealing my fingers together. Why is it the most ordinary images that fall out, when I shuffle the memories? Two girls in a secondhand bookshop, hands sticky with sampled perfumes from an afternoon's Dublin.

Up these four storeys of shelves, time moves more slowly than outside on the quays of the dirty river. One window cuts a slab of sunlight; dust motes twitch through it. I shut my eyes and breathe in. 'Which did I put on my thumb, Cara, do you remember?'

No answer. I stretch my hand towards her over the Irish poetry shelf, as if hitching a lift. 'All I can smell is old books; you have a go. Was it sandalwood?"

Cam emerges from a cartoon, and dips to my hand She wrinkles her nose, which has always reminded me of an 'is less than' sign in algebra.

'Not nice?' I ask.

'Dunno, Pen. Something liquorishy.' Her eyes drift back to the page.

'1 hate liquorice.' All I can make out now is vile strawberry on the wrist. I offer my thumb for Cara to smell again, but she has edged down a shelf to Theology. My arm moves in her wake and topples a pyramid of Surprising Summer Salads.

I'm sure to have torn one. I have only ninety-two pence in my drawstring purse, and my belly is cramping. It occurs to me to simply shift my weight on to the ball of my foot and take off like a crazed rhinoceros through the door, Then, being a responsible citizen, even at seventeen, I put my mother's spare handbag down beside the sprawl of books, and kneel. The princess who sorted seeds from sand at least had eloquent ants to help her. All I get are Cara's eyes rolling from the safe distance of the Marxism shelf, and a snigger from some art student over by the window. Luckily the black-lipsticked Goth at the till is engrossed in finding a paper bag for an old atlas; in any other bookshop a saleswoman would be pursing her lips and planting her stiletto heels six inches from my fingers. The tomb of Surprising Summer Salads I build is better ventilated than the original, almost Japanese. I have been neat, no one can make me buy a copy. If it were Astonishing Autumn Appetizers, now, I might consider it

I'm blithering, amn't I?

Cara is over by Aviation pretending not to know me, so I set off downstairs; tr

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"I'm blithering, amn't I?" asks Pen O'Grady, narrator of Donoghue's second novel (after Stir-Fry). Many readers will answer "yes"?and that's a shame, because behind Pen's banal chattiness lies an agreeable and affecting story. Thirty-year-old Dublin schoolteacher Pen has just lost her lover of 13 years, Cara Wall, in a car crash. Though mapping the trajectory of Pen's grief seems Donoghue's primary aim, she also explores issues untouched by death: Will Pen bed Cara's sexy older sister, Kate, who's flown home from America for the funeral? Will Pen find the courage to come out to her mother and to Cara's father? Quotidian tails of housecleaning and coffee-brewing share space, sometimes too much, with tender and troubling flashbacks of life with the flame-haired, faithless Cara, whom Pen first seduced on their convent-school roof. Donoghue's unsentimental examination of the complex relationship between the two women is a pleasure, but the story line, lacking dramatic tension, ultimately sags under the weight of Pen's wordiness. U.K., translation, dramatic rights: Caroline Davidson, London.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Hood is a tale of love between two Catholic women in Dublin, Ireland--a country in which homosexuality still largely dares not speak its name openly. Cara's sudden death at 30 leaves bereaved Penelope shocked, grieving, reliving their 14-year relationship, which Donoghue covers in a series of overlapping flashbacks, from the time the two met in convent school in the late seventies to the early nineties, when they lived together in Cara's father's home. Funeral preparations and postburial returns to "normalcy" alternate with Pen's recollections of the moody, tempestuous Cara. These memories include screamingly good sex muffled from Cara's father's ears; Cara's repeated forays into other women's and men's beds; day-to-day routines the two shared, including Cara's maddening habit of asking life's larger questions as they drift to sleep at night; and, most important, Pen's development into a coping but vulnerable adult. Although some may find it slow, others will consider this love story that well conveys the complexities and nuances of intimate relationships stately and elegiac. Whitney Scott --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Alyson Books (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555834531
• ISBN-13: 978-1555834531
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #326,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the bestselling "Slammerkin," "The Sealed Letter," "Landing," "Life Mask," "Hood," and "Stirfry." Her story collections are "The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits," "Kissing the Witch," and "Touchy Subjects." She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two small children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond coming-out..., November 8, 2001

By 

Deka (Minneapolis, MN, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hood (Paperback)

Absorbing and intense, this novel goes far beyond typical "coming-out" literature. Set in Dublin in the 80's, Hood follows the main character Pen (thirties, a teacher) through the week following her lover's death. Jealousy, intimacy, passion, shame and even humor: it's all here as we experience the grieving process with an invisible widow. Grief is not a quick phase and so the book may at times feel weighty and a little slow-moving. But stick with it -- and you won't have to make yourself do that for long -- for Emma Donoghue's delicate and deft prose will pull you back in. You may even find yourself as I did: coming back to read Hood again and again. In the end, this is a book about indentity and finding hope -- not in spite of, but through, one's pain.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uncommon, May 8, 2002

By 

"acmedunveiled" (Tacoma, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hood (Paperback)

Whenever I encounter a novel with homosexual themes, I usually roll my eyes. You can predict what's going to happen most of the time: the two fall in love, they disagree about coming out/ one gets beat up/ they have to hide/ etc., they are pulled apart, then they come back together against all odds and love overcomes all.

All except death. This novel is great because, for the most part, this is not the plot. Cara's death has nothing to do with her sexuality, and besides having to explain her relation to Cara, Pen's grieving is the grieving of anyone who has lost someone close. This is not about lesbians (although they are the main characters); it's about love and grief and living through that grief, no matter what sexual orientation you are.

I definitely reccomend it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Have emotions, or want to develop some?, February 20, 2005

By 

Valerie K. Miller (South Bend, In) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hood (Paperback)

Penelope and Cara, the protagonists of this novel, share many attributes. They are both lesbians, feminists, dubliners, schoolmates, friends, and lovers. There are two very enormous differences between them though and it's these differences, sprinkled between the similarities, that make this novel ring so true and devastating and joyous: one (pen)is loyal and cara is not. And pen is alive, while cara has just died in one of those "who would've thought " car accidents that seem to strike with terrifying random and frequency.
While lesbianism and it's resulting feminism in 80's Ireland are certainly vibrant issues in this book, Donoghue imparts each character with such stunning humanity that anyone with a heart and a lover will recognize their struggles and their tragedies, not to mention their triumphs. And though the sex scenes are honest and intense, they don't read like a guidebook-they are filled with passion. And that passion is both heightened and irrevocably intensified, because the reader meets these two after one of them has left the living.
Donoghue also paints the five different stages of grief with a deft, empathetic hand, weaving between past and present and never staying on either too long, she introduces the reader to Cara by inches, while taking her away from Pen by degrees. Pen's struggle to get through her daily life while wrestling with the more esoteric demands of bereavement will be recognized by anyone who has experienced a sudden loss. And though Donoghue never lets the reader or Pen judge Cara too harshly, she let's cara be a three dimentional being, even in death, i.e. she never let's her be a saint or a ghost.
By the end of the book, which takes up one week in real life, the reader is in love with them both and probably feels a strong urge to go find their lover and squeeze them tightly, even though they've neglected to be perfect. Like many masterpieces, and I don't use that word lightly, this book covers all emotions without making the reader feel she is being manipulated or left behind. I've read this book several times and never tire of it, though every time through I do sniffle a bit. Okay, I sob. But even while crying, I feel the immediacy and wonder of life and it's not every book (or writer) that can do all those things at once and still make you laugh outright in the bargain.