Book Review: Sisters of Belfast

   By Melanie Maure

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Irish fiction  

• Where I bought this book: The Bookmatters Bookstore, Milford, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: It has Belfast in the title

• Bookmark used: The Bookshelf bookstore

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    The blurbs for this novel seriously underestimate the emotional impact it pommels. It's portrayed as a novel of two women, with the special bonds of twinness and sisterhood, whose lives diverge for years before uniting through fate and faith.

    Well, if it were only that simple.

    Instead, it has Aelish, the "good" twin, a devout Catholic who joins the Sisters of Bethlehem and starts down the road to a life of prayer and service, and Isabel, the "bad" twin, rambunctious and rebellious. Both are taken to a Catholic orphanage after their parents are killed in the bombing of Belfast by the Nazis in World War II. 

    Isabel, known as Izzy, is soon sent to another nearby home, run by a order of French nuns known as the Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours. She eventually rejects the church and runs away, moving to Newfoundland, Canada, with her boyfriend, Declan, who becomes her husband.

    But after a few years, the sisters reunite and live in the orphanage-convent they grew up in, where Aelish now serves as Sister Clare. Izzy is grateful for the housing, but uncomfortable with the church.

    The tale goes back and forth from the sisters' early days as young girls, until their becoming older woman with stories and secrets. Sister Clare is devout, but wonders if she made the right choices in life. Isabel is angry about the choices made for her, and lashes out at those who caused her pain.

    Soon, the sisters together, in their separate ways, begin to question the work of the Mother and Baby Home near their own convent. It's in the early 1950s, and the homes are still seen as benevolent Christian organizations helping the young girls and women they take in and ostensibly care for. But their sisters' explorations runs into the reality of what church and state have both wrought.

    This is a compelling tale, laced with melancholy, and Irish to the core in its setting, language, and poignancy.    

Book Review: Wild Geese

 By Soula Emmanuel

• Pub Date: 2023

• Genre: Irish fiction  

• Where I bought this book: The Bookmatters Bookstore, Milford, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: A cover blurb called the writer an "exciting new voice," and I do love me new voices in Irish writing

• Bookmark used: The Bookmatters Bookstore

*****

    I really, really wanted to like this book. I'm always looking for new contemporary Irish fiction. I want to read more about people whose lives are not like mine. I want to explore the world around me through the books I read. This one hits those points. 

    On a recent book crawl town -- 22 independent bookstores in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky over a three-day period -- Wild Geese was the first of the dozen or so books I bought.

    I'm sad to say I was a mite disappointed in this tale of a transgender woman trying to find herself in an intrusive world, when she would rather be an anonymous soul in academia.

    But here's a thing: I liked the character, Phoebe. She's a bit melodramatic, but often witty, somewhat introverted, and intelligent. (More on her later.) 

     Here's the thing. The writing, for the most part, is excellent. It shows an original, clever use of the language. It's descriptive and entertaining.

     But here's yet another thing: A compelling phrase or simile shares space with those that seem contrived. For instance, on page 114, she writes, "Comparison often leaves you on you back, afflicting the floor to spite the ceiling." But five pages later, she comes up with this gem, as she sits on the docks of Copenhagen, looking across the Øresund to neighboring Sweden: 

On a day like today, Sweden can be seen quite distinctly. The port of Helsingborg looks like art itself, a drab confusion of factories, chimneys, and warehouses -- a commentary on the one-time promises of industry. The Øresund, a smooth fillet of water, forms a velvet rope of sorts, behind which we watch from the dewy serenity of the Danish side.

    Phoebe, the protagonist, is a 30-year-old woman coming to grips with the changes in her body and mind. She's left her family and friends in Ireland to pursue her masters and doctorate degrees in Denmark. She lives alone is a small apartment, with her landlord's dog and few possessions. She's mostly drifting, ill-at-ease, and lonely.

    One Friday night, Grace -- a former girlfriend and lover back in the day before Phoebe starting transitioning -- unexpectedly knocks on her door. Grace is your basic literary antagonistic, somewhat pushy but endearing. It's unclear why she flew in for the weekend. She wants to support Phoebe and have her back in her life, but lacks the commitment or understanding of who Phoebe has become. Phoebe sense this disparity and confusion.

    The pair act as our tour guides on their excursions around Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen, the sites, the bars, and the scenes. There's a lot of drama and navel-gazing, much discussion and description. Most of it is meandering and mundane, stream-of-consciousness writing that adds to one's frustrations with the book, leaving you wondering if all is pointless. 

    But there are two other things that redeem the novel. One is that she mentions a Galway band, The Saw Doctors, several times. Then there is her interpretation of the nation's most famous statue, dedicated to a fairy tale by its beloved author, Hans Christian Andersen.

The Little Mermaid statue is a life-jacket demonstration, and that always comes at the beginning. It is an obligation -- you'd be in trouble if you didn't bother with it. It offers more in the way of accountability than aesthetics. If Grace gushes about how marvelous the little lady is, I'll know she's lying and catch her buttering me up.