Much happens on the surface of this elegiac novel, which is imbued with a continual theme of estrangement. Off the coast of Scotland, she becomes enmeshed in a troubled love affair made murkier still by alcoholism and depression, finding solace only in the music she composes - fragments of a larger, overtly spiritual orchestral work. At issue are the loyalties of Catherine McKenna, who as a young composer finds a clarity of voice that is otherwise missing in her stifling roles as daughter, girlfriend and mother. These evocations of the drums areĪ framing device for the main narrative of Bernard MacLaverty's new novel, but, as in his previous one, ''Cal,'' the region's political troubles serve mostly as a metaphor for the intense familial struggles But his daughter finds herself ''thrilled by the sound'' - and later composes a symphony that emphasizes their thunderous cacophony. Protestant marching season in Northern Ireland.
(Sept.N the Twelfth they thump them so hard and so long they bleed their wrists,'' a Roman Catholic father mutters bitterly of the enormous drums beaten during the McLaverty's own music here is restrained and spare, but it swells to a crescendo in the denouement when one of Catherine's compositions is played in concert. The most interesting writing manifests itself in Catherine's expression of her creative philosophy: her sources of inspiration, the process of composition and how the tones, textures and rhythms of sound blend to create what we appreciate as music. The narrative moves gracefully from present to past, as childhood memories provide welcome moments of comfort and comic relief amid Catherine's wry reflections on her craft and her struggles to practice it.
Having left Dave, she battles clinical depression having returned home, she must face the painful, irreconcilable differences of opinion and outlook that for years have estranged her from her religious parents, her Irishness and her church. Along the way, she takes up with Dave, a charming but ultimately abusive alcoholic when she becomes pregnant, the conflict between her music and the endless demands of motherhood force her into an artistic impasse.
The novel opens at the funeral of Catherine McKenna's father, a small-town publican, and goes back to trace Catherine's journey from her hometown, through music school in Scotland, into the male-dominated world of musical composition. Rarely the territory of male writers, the travails of postnatal depression and single motherhood get a sober, delicate treatment in the third novel from popular Northern Irish author MacLaverty (Lamb Cal).
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