may-june 2025 books…

After The Apocalypse (Chris Goan): I keep coming back to this wonderful book of poetry (by my good friend Chris - and illustrated by another great mate, Si Smith). It’s a book written in the context of the Coronavirus pandemic (written in 3 sections: Before, During and After). I’ve been using the ‘Before’ section (written in a pre-pandemic world when, for Chris – and me! - as dissatisfaction with what was ‘normal’ started to grow in him) as part of my recent early morning reflections. I find that he has a brilliant ability to express stuff in a way that speaks to and for me.
The Visitor (Maeve Brennan): This novella (published in 2000, but actually written in the 1940s when Brennan was in her late 20s) tells the story of 22-year-old Anastasia King. Following the death of her mother, she leaves Paris to return to Dublin. In the time that she had been away, her estranged father has died. On arriving to her family home, Anastasia is met by her paternal grandmother – who has determined never to forgive Anastasia for fleeing with her mother. While Anastasia thinks she has come home to stay, her vengeful grandmother deems she is an unwelcome visitor. It’s a haunting, sad and beautifully-written story. I found it both oppressive and hugely impressive.
Wilfred And Eileen (Jonathan Smith): This novel (first published in 1976, but republished by Persephone Books in 2014) is set in 1913+14 and loosely based on a true story. It’s love story and a WW1 story. Wilfred was 22 in 1912 when, at a May Ball at Trinity College, Cambridge, he met Eileen. The couple fell in love but because of parental opposition on both sides they married in secret. The approach of WW1 is evoked with great simplicity; Eileen stays living at home in Kensington while Wilfred continues his medical studies at the London Hospital. When Wilfred joins up and is shot in the head it is only through the efforts of his wife and colleagues that he survives. Evocative and harrowing, but also hopeful.  
Money To Burn (Asta Olivia Nordenhof): This is a complex, angry, intimate, Danish novel about capitalism and relationships (a strange combination!). Published in 2025, it’s the first of a 7-part series of books (they already have titles, but I don’t think they’ve yet been written). Much of the book is about the struggling lives of Maggie and Kurt – holding on to their lives in Nyborg after their only daughter has left home – set alongside (for reasons that are so far unclear) references to a national tragedy in Denmark and Norway, decades ago, when a passenger ferry called the Scandinavian Star caught fire, killing 159 people. Years later, more information comes to light suggesting that it was an insurance scam and not an accident. It’s an impressive book (even if I did find it confusing at times!) that dodges about in terms of narrative. To me, it rather felt as if Nordenhof had written several different stories; cut+pasted extracts from each; and then set them out in random order (including people dying, then reappearing) just to confuse me! Strangely impressive nevertheless.
Girl With Green Eyes (Edna O’Brien): First published in 1962 (our copy is dated 1968 in Moira’s handwriting, on her 18^th birthday), it’s the second book in ‘The Country Girls’ trilogy. It’s written through the eyes+ears of innocent Cait/Kate Brady, who leaves her family farm and heads for Dublin, where she lives with her former convent friend Baba Brennan. She soon meets older man Eugene, who is a writer and intellectual. Kate and Eugene fall in love but, when Cait's father finds out about their romance, he is determined to break it up… (I’ll leave it there: *no spoilers!*). It’s comic and poignant and, of course, beautifully-written.