Tag Archives: Maggie O’Farrell

The Marriage Portrait

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Strong willed teenage girls have been in literature since Shakespeare’s thirteen year old Juliet. Maggie O’Farrell uses Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess” and the Macchiavellian intrigue of the sixteenth century to create a fascinating tale of the young Duchess of Ferrara.

Lucrezia may be an outcast in her family, not quite fitting in with her dark haired subserviant sisters and her entitled brothers, but she has had the courage to face down a tiger in her father’s wild menagerie. Her feisty demeanor serves her well as she is promised at age twelve to an older duke needing an heir.

O’Farrell imagines the real Italian Duchess’s life within all the confines of male domination in that century, and bestows the gift of art to the young girl, who creates animal miniatures as an alternative to the embroidery usually required of young women of the time. I could relate to Lucretia’s appreciation of the back side of the embroidery hoop, with all the knots and stitches needed to create the perfect picture on the other side. Her life is full of those knots, but O’Farrell gives her an escape with the help of an unlikely hero when all seems lost.

The story bounced back and forth in time to keep the suspense. The fictional duchess in the story seems destined to meet the same fate as her real forebearer as O’Farrell once again creates a compelling and totally enjoyable story.

I looked for the text of Browning’s poem and found it with a short explanation. O’Farrell cleverly includes the white donkey as well as other details from the poem in her story. Here is the poem and a short analysis.

https://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/browning/section3/

Maggie O’Farrell is one of my favorite authors. Here are my reviews of other books by Maggie O’Farell:

Hamnet –

https://thenochargebookbunch.com/2021/06/16/hamnet-by-maggie-ofarrell/

The Hand That First Held Mine –

https://thenochargebookbunch.com/2010/04/28/the-hand-that-first-held-mine-maggie-ofarrell/

This Must Be the Place

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9780385349420_p0_v2_s192x300   Where would you go if you wanted to disappear from the world?  If you are Maggie O’Farrell, of course you would go to Ireland.  In her new book – This Must Be the Place – O’Farrell creates a complicated saga of lives constantly being reinvented, and the turmoil of relationships.

Daniel Sullivan, an American linguistics professor, drives the action, across different wives, countries, children, and time zones.  As the story opens, Daniel is trying to recover from a bitter divorce which has kept him from seeing his two young children, Niall and Phoebe.  On a trip to Ireland to scatter his grandfather’s ashes, he serendipitously meets Claudette, a famous movie star in hiding with her young son, Ari.  Eventually, they marry and happily stay in hiding together in a remote area of Ireland for ten years – until, the next crisis in Daniel’s life.

If the plot seems formulaic, do not be deceived.  O’Farrell expertly weaves characters and motivations together, while keeping the reader off balance with the jumping of time zones and the introductions of new characters.  She cleverly draws the reader into what would seem to be an ordinary existence, then clobbers all expectations with revelations of the past in each character’s life.

The story is complicated but rewarding.  In This Must Be the Place, O’Farrell offers the possibilities of love offering understanding and relief from our own worst selves.

I need to read the book again, but knowing what happens will not spoil the anticipation of watching the interaction of all the characters, and, this time, I plan to revel in O’Farrell’s vivid descriptions of place and time.

Related Reviews:

Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must Be the Place

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When one of my favorite place for books recommended Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must Be the Place, I decided to order it.  First, the library system, but the book must be too new since it has not caught the attention of the ordering queen. A book by the same title was in the system – by Kate Racculia published in 2010.

Next, to iBook – imagine my surprise to learn a third book has the same title: one by Anna Winger  published in 2009.  Last on the list is Maggie O’Farrell.  Irrelevant, but a song released in 1983 also has the name as well as a movie with Sean Penn in 2011.  Popular title.

Wondering what such a title could predict?

Winger’s debut novel tells of two people who find each other when they least expect it in a city haunted by history.  Racculia involves four eclectic boarders, Mona and her daughter, who find their quiet life upended by the arrival of a widower in the middle of a nervous breakdown.   O’Farrell’s book focuses on a marriage.

Unknown-2  Maggie O’Farrell is one of my favorite writers.  I found her with The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, then sought out her Instructions for a Heatwave, and The Hand That First Held Mine (see my reviews below).

Now I have the sample of her latest book on my iPhone – a reminder to try the library again, but if it doesn’t appear when I’ve finished my latest library stack, I may have to just  just download it.  I have time; the book is due to be published in the United State on July 19th.

Have you read any of O’Farrell’s books?

Related Reviews:

Edinburgh Books and Writers

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Off the tourist driven Royal Mile, down a secluded alley – called a Close – the Writers’ Museum in Edinburgh welcomes readers with quiet homage to a few of Scotland’s greatest writers – Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Sir Walter Scott. Steep winding staircases lead to rooms in a restored 17th century house, displaying first editions, writing instruments, even desks used by the authors. Of course, their portraits are everywhere.

A poster in the gift shop advertised the Edinburgh International Book Festival nearby, with some of my favorite authors speaking – Maggie O’Farrell, Sophie Hannah, Haruki Murakami, Martin Amis. Too late to get a ticket to hear even one, but I wandered the grounds, browsed through the books in tents, and, of course, bought some books.

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Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

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9780385349406_p0_v1_s260x420Family secrets are Maggie O’Farrell’s forte and her latest novel – Instructions for a Heatwave – combines her facility for everyday drama with shocking revelations. If you’ve read O’Farrell’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox or The Hand That First Held Mine, you know to raise your expectations for a surprising twist in the plot.

The heat in London is unbearable when Robert, a retired banker, decides to take a walk, but never returns, leaving behind his Irish chatterbox wife, three grown children, and a couple of grandkids. The story moves across London, Ireland, and New York City in 1976 – just before the electronic media made secrets archaic. As Aoife (pronounced ee-fa, the Irish “Eve”) returns from New York City to the London house to help her brother, Michael Francis, and sister, Monica, in the search for their father, Robert’s disappearance fades into the background as O’Farrell reveals the diverting background lives of each character. Everyone has a secret and no one is happy, except perhaps Gretta, the frantic mother who lives in denial. Michael Francis, the eldest son, is a frustrated Ph.D. wannabe who teaches history at a local grammar school and has recently had a one-night stand with a fellow teacher; Monica, divorced from the love of her life, cannot seem to assimilate into her second marriage with her new husband and his young daughters; Aoife, hides her dyslexia from everyone, including Gabe, her new lover, who sends her love notes she cannot decipher. Gretta has an irrational penchant for cleaning out shelves when stressed, and cannot seem to stop talking or giving unwanted advice.

After finding check stubs that date back fifteen years, the family takes the ferry to Cork, Ireland, in search of their father. Of course, there is another woman, but not in the way you may expect; the checks are sent to a convent. As Gretta reveals the mystery, the truth jolts the family – first into further chaos but eventually into redemption with an ending that renews faith in the ability of loved ones to come through for each other when needed. The family rallies and survives, but Robert is another story. He appears in the beginning and in the end, only as a phantom catalyst. I wonder what a good book group would conclude about his future – O’Farrell leaves it open.

I liked the way Maggie O’Farrell can take dramatic incidents and weave them into meaningful moments that connected to me. When she described Aoife breathing in the scents of her parents’ bedroom, it brought back the first time I returned to my childhood home after my father died, and anyone who has siblings will recognize the pride within the rivalry, the understanding and the annoyance. O’Farrell’s stories are dramatically intricate, and if you are looking for neatness and straight story lines O’Farrell cannot deliver. After all, family relationships are messy.

Related Review: The Hand That First Held Mine