Released after years of dutiful servitude, Patricia resolves to seek out the romantic fulfilment she has denied herself for so long. Forty years in the past, we encounter Elizabeth’s mother, Patricia, whose own mother has died following a long illness. But it is when Elizabeth discovers a cache of her mother’s correspondence that the fruit machine starts to pay out in earnest.Īt this point, a parallel narrative is introduced, and one whose elements are in some ways familiar. Encountering a mirror, she takes stock of her facial features as if encountering them for the first time, a practice popular among male writers if not among actual women. When Elizabeth admits herself to the now-deserted family home, she has hardly climbed the stairs before the revelations begin tumbling out. We learn, for instance, that Elizabeth is recently divorced, that her mother’s death has occasioned her return to Ireland and that she dislikes Christmas.Īnd there is more to come. Norton dispenses with these niceties, issuing us instead with a sizeable information pack. Exposition of this kind is one of the chores that the novelist must get on with, and if it is done discreetly the reader hardly notices. We know this because Elizabeth thinks it to herself, in an opening chapter consisting almost entirely of similar ruminations. This review originally appeared in the Irish Times.Įlizabeth Keane, who occupies centre stage in Graham Norton’s new novel, is ‘a lecturer in Romantic poetry living in a tiny rented apartment’ in New York.

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