A Writer Reads

And how could I not read, freshly back from Listowel, laden with interesting material and still trailing around books which I just never got the time for, when they were newly-published.

One such is the highly-praised ‘Midwinter Break’, by Bernard MacLaverty, among the five short-listed titles for the lucrative Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award.

Being neither elderly nor long-term married, I hadn’t an immediate identification with either character, but as I read on, I marvelled at the minutiae of the lives of Stella and Gerry as portrayed by MacLaverty, and the way in which both husband and wife anticipate the other’s next move, second-guessing an imminent behaviour or statement, before it occurs. The tics of living together over a protracted period are instantly recognisable and though not all of the protagonists’ habits are attractive, they are so acutely observed, that the reader is left in no doubt as to how well this couple know each other.

MacLaverty’s beautiful writing made me ponder on how you don’t have to like a character, to deliver them fully-formed to the reader. Perhaps the author loved both Stella and Gerry equally; I have to say, I struggled with Stella, who perhaps not without her own good reasons, I found cold, and replete with the most irritating know-all traits. Alcoholic Gerry, in his bumbling way, loved her deeply; he just hadn’t made the connection between that love and how harmful to it, his behaviours were.