Synopses & Reviews
Colm Tóibín’s exquisitely written new stories, set in present-day Ireland, 1970s Spain and nineteenth century England, are about people linked by love, loneliness and desire. Tóibín is a master at portraying mute emotion, intense intimacies that remain unacknowledged or unspoken. In this stunning collection, he cements his status as “his generation’s most gifted writer of love’s complicated, contradictory power” (
Los Angeles Times).
“Silence” is a brilliant historical set piece about Lady Gregory, widowed and abandoned by her lover, who tells the writer Henry James a confessional story at a dinner party. In “Two Women,” an eminent Irish set designer, aloof and prickly, takes a job in her homeland, and is forced to confront devastating emotions she has long repressed. “The New Spain” is the story of an intransigent woman who returns home after a decade in exile and shatters the fragile peace her family has forged in the post-Franco world. And in the breathtaking long story “The Street,” Tóibín imagines a startling relationship between two Pakistani workers in Barcelona — a taboo affair in a community ruled by obedience and silence.
Tóibín’s characters are often difficult and combative, compelled to disguise their vulnerability and longings. Yet he unmasks them, and in doing so offers us a set of extraordinarily moving stories that remind us of the fragility and individuality of human life. As The New York Review of Books has said, Tóibín “understands the tenuousness of love and comfort — and, after everything, its necessity.”
Review
"This book, then, is short story writing as dazzling yet serious as it is practiced today." Booklist (Starred Review)
Synopsis
Colm Toibin's exquisitely written new stories, set in present-day Ireland, 1970s Spain and nineteenthcentury England, are about people linked by love, loneliness and desire. Toibin is a master at portraying mute emotion, intense intimacies that remain unacknowledged or unspoken. In this stunning collection, he cements his status as "his generation's most gifted writer of love's complicated, contradictory power" (Los Angeles Times).
"Silence" is a brilliant historical set piece about Lady Gregory, widowed and abandoned by her lover, who tells the writer Henry James a confessional story at a dinner party. In "Two Women," an eminent Irish set designer, aloof and prickly, takes a job in her homeland, and is forced to confront devastating emotions she has long repressed. "The New Spain" is the story of an intransigent woman who returns home after a decade in exile and shatters the fragile peace her family has forged in the post-Franco world. And in the breathtaking long story "The Street," Toibin imagines a startling relationship between two Pakistani workers in Barcelona--a taboo affair in a community ruled by obedience and silence.
Toibin's characters are often difficult and combative, compelled to disguise their vulnerability and longings. Yet he unmasks them, and in doing so offers us a set of extraordinarily moving stories that remind us of the fragility and individuality of human life. As The New York Review of Books has said, Toibin "understands the tenuousness of love and comfort--and, after everything, its necessity."
Synopsis
The acclaimed author of the novels The South and The Blackwater Lightship presents a new collection of short stories.
Synopsis
On the heels of his breakout success, the bestselling and award-winning novel
Brooklyn, Colm Tóibiín returns with a stunning collection of new stories, written in prose as “elegant in its simplicity as it is complex in the emotions it evokes” (
The New York Times Magazine ).
Critics praised Brooklyn as a “beautifully rendered portrait of Brooklyn and provincial Ireland in the 1950s.” In The Empty Family, Tóibín has extended his imagination further, offering an incredible range of periods and characters — people linked by love, loneliness, desire — “the unvarying dilemmas of the human heart” ( The Observer, UK).
In the breathtaking long story “The Street,” Tóibín imagines a relationship between Pakistani workers in Barcelona — a taboo affair in a community ruled by obedience and silence. In “Two Women,” an eminent and taciturn Irish set designer takes a job in her homeland, and must confront emotions she has long repressed. “Silence” is a brilliant historical set piece about Lady Gregory, who tells the writer Henry James a confessional story at a dinner party.
Like Tóibíns collection Mothers and Sons, reviewed on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, The Empty Family will further cement Tóibíns status as “his generations most gifted writer of loves complicated, contradictory power” (Floyd Skloot, Los Angeles Times ).
About the Author
Colm TÓibÍn was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of six novels, including The Blackwater Lightship, The Master, winner of a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Brooklyn, winner of a Costa Book Award. Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, TÓibÍn lives in Dublin and New York.