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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Nature of Relationships, July 3, 2001
This review is from: The Nature of Water and Air (Paperback)
I was intrigued by this book, which is one of the reasons I bought it. It's a well written story about one woman's struggle to understand herself, her mother and life. From the very opening of the book, when Clodagh says "My mother was never easy in the world of houses. She was a tinker, a traveler girl who had married a wealthy man. Her name was Agatha Sheehy...There are silences all around my mother's story.", you get an insight into Clodagh's personality too. While she is describing her mother's flighty ways, you get the feeling that Clodagh wants to have her mother be more attentive. At one point, Agatha tells Clodagh "you want to be in my skin with me" and you understand how close Clodagh really wants to be with her mother. A little further into the novel, you are with Clodagh as her mother commits suicide. From then on, the story is less about Agatha Sheehy and more about Clodagh Sheehy. From the trials of being a teenager going into puberty and learning about herself as a woman, to finding a man she is irrestitably attracted to, this book covers all aspects of relationships. Near the end, it took an unexpected turn that was not at all foreshadowed earlier in the book, so it was a good surprise. I was stunned, and then found myself hoping that it would change (and it did). It kept me on the edge of my chair until I had finished reading it. This story is surely one that will last and will have you thinking and re-thinking about your relationships. Regina McBride has written a haunting novel. This is her first novel, and I'd have to say it is probably one of the better written ones I've read.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This book waxes lyrical verses!, April 29, 2002
This review is from: The Nature of Water and Air (Paperback)
It is a beautifully written book with lyrical tones ~~ almost as if it was written to a tune of a piano. Some places are soft and gentle then it comes crashing down with the heavy tomes of truth and finishes with a clash of joy. It's not your typical reading. Clodagh is a young woman who have spent the years of her life looking for something that was missing from her life. Her twin, Mare, died when she was a child. Agatha, her mother, was distant and aloof with Clodagh and Clodagh never felt that her mother loved her. So when Agatha died, Clodagh found her solace in music ~~ playing the piano. Only that didn't fulfill her for long and she falls in love with a man who somehow holds the clue to her mother's past. Clodagh is a complex character ~~ you can't help but feel her anguish when she searches for what she is looking for. You can't help but admire her tenacity to hold onto life even at its darkest moments. She is a strong and yet weak character traveling between two worlds ~~ one of life and one of death. This is an interesting book ~~ but don't expect it to be a light and fluffy read like my usual reads have been. It's full of dark underlying tones that makes you either uncomfortable or anxious to explore it. It was hard for me to keep reading on some pages because it was so dark ~~ depressing almost. But I can guarantee that you will want to finish this book and find out what has happened to Clodagh. She is a character that you will not soon forget. 4-29-02
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A compelling read!, May 26, 2001
This review is from: The Nature of Water and Air (Paperback)
Spanning the twenty years from 1960 to 1981, we enter the timeless magic of Ireland, a story that could take place now or in almost another century. Clodaugh Sheehy straddles two worlds, that of the genteel and that of the tinker (people sometimes referred to as Ireland's gypsies). Even before Clodaugh's birth, events are set in motion that will determine her own destiny. Once Frank Sheehy, the frail- hearted father dies, Clodaugh's aunts can no longer abide his wife, the wild tinker woman, Agatha, and they banish her from the West of Ireland to their empy house on the eastern coast, where she gives birth to twin daughters, the feisty precocious Clodaugh, and a sickly sister, Mary, called Mare. Agatha likes pretty dresses and trinkets, but she also likes to roam near the sea and out in the fields, seeking the campfires and caravans of the tinkers she lived with as a girl until she met Frank Sheehy. Clodaugh and Mare are mostly left to their own devices except for the kindly care of a house servant, Mrs. O'Dare. At age five, Mare dies, and the distraught and lonely Clodaugh abandons for a time the piano they played together, feels Mare inside herself at times, and wants to cleave even more strongly to her mother. However, when Agatha walks into the sea for the last time, Clodaugh is now truly alone and has to grow up. She gives up her belief in ghosts and selkies, tries to forget Agatha and Mare, and attends the convent school, where she proves herself to be an accomplished musician on the piano. She goes on to win a prestigious award at college and her destiny seems secure and certain until the call of the tinker life and in particular, the chance meeting with a copper-haired man named Angus threatens to undermine everything. Told in a straightforward, yet heartbreaking manner, part mythic, almost every line stirs with poetry, undoubtedly inspired by the Yeats which Angus quotes to Clodaugh, but probably also by the author's own poetic background, as well as the land itself, where sea and sky meet and one can almost imagine a woman who is half seal and half woman swimming on the tides. Amazingly, the story, saturated as it is with sentimentality, still manages to strike just the right tone and keep the reader's interest throughout.
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