- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Sceptre; New edition edition (18 Sep 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 034069663X
- ISBN-13: 978-0340696637
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 731,169 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The memoirs of "Irish Times" journalist Nuala O'Faolain. The book traces her life from childhood in Dublin, through university, and her career in TV and the press, also touching on her mother's alcoholism and her growing acceptance of age.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The astonishing honesty in her writing so moved me that I felt compelled to write to Nuala to thank her for the experience. In her reply she told me she was attempting a novel. After numerous readings of her memoirs I have just finished reading the extended edition which includes selected journalism and I'm once again stunned by the mighty ability she has of conveying her true depth of understanding through her exquisite writing. Thoughts of Nuala are never far away and I hope and pray that she is well, happy and nearing completion of her novel. Its publication should be heralded very loudly indeed.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In telling the story of a life that is far from ordinary, Nuala O'Faolain pulls off a remarkable blend of intense, almost orgasmic, intellectual enjoyment of the poesy of the English language, and down to earth Irish humour and humanity. Her courage in showing the frustration and inadequacy that lies behind her public persona bears favourable comparison with Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes; having gone on to write the self-pitying 'Tis, it was big-hearted of him to write so admiringly as he has of 'Are You Somebody?'.
O'Faolain is a journalist, a literary academic, a TV producer and (in Ireland) a well-known pundit and columnist. She is also, very much, a woman: a feminist who is frank in her description of the encumbrances - and the valuable inheritances - of her upbringing. Vulnerable, humble, and warm, she pays (maybe more than) proper tribute to the benefits of her conservative, convent education as well as to the vagaries imposed upon her and her many siblings as a result of the failings of her errant, adulterous father (a famed journalist himself) and her beautiful, intelligent, but alcoholic, mother. She expresses without bitterness the slight emptiness of her youth with two parents each absent in their different ways, which - after honestly described forays into one doomed relationship after another - led to a single, childless, middle age, littered with subtle attempts at self-destruction in unrecognised imitation of her mother. She describes her own attempts to assuage and to understand herself through psychiatrists, therapy groups, drink, and, finally, through the love of those who know her - whether personally or through her writing.
To appreciate this book to the full you would have to be steeped in literary culture - and modern Irish literary culture in particular - but it is easy, too, to take this the other way around, and to allow O'Faolain to show the way into her world; each page is a bibliography in itself and her appreciation of the works which she describes has an infectious quality. This book will astonish you with the beauty and literacy of its prose and the accesibility and realness of its writer.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I once stumbled upon an enchanting outdoor political rally in Santa Fe, New Mexico, circa 1983, where Jesse Jackson effortlessly had all comers - and Santa Fe is an affluent resort - not just the downtrodden Latinos and Native Americans he had come specifically to inspire - raise our fists and shout "I Am Somebody". That felt good, but reading this book felt better. In both cases, I am far from the 'dis-enfranchised' citizen embodied in the speech (non-minority, non-catholic, non-Irish), but everyone among us knows what it feels like to wonder if we are somebody, or just no one at all. I found in this book at least four finely crafted passages among a great deal of fine (okay, some were obtuse, but so what? Do we want everyone to write only about what We know? I am glad to look up the references.) stories that brought my reading to a bursting-hearted halt, forced me to take a breath, absorb the import of the words and then to feel happier to be alive than I ever have been, to have felt a kind hand put my head on straighter than it was before. If you ask of a book, did it need to be written, and is the world better because it was written, and am I better for having read it - then Yes on all counts. You know what I wish? That Doris Lessing's superb skill as a novelist and dramatist, as in her novel "Love Again", could be somehow blended with the forthrightness, bravado, and forward-thinking of this book. It would be the ultimate combination of what the Ancient Greeks would have called, 'technae and psuchae' (skill and raw talent, sort of). Nuala, Nuala, now that you know how well your first book was received, and how much we love you - won't you write us a novel, please? Show Ms Lessing that life does not need love as its axis, show the literary world just exactly how to make vivid experiences into the elusive Perfect Partner. Nuala, I'll bet you if you write a novel, it'll be better than anything that has come before.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
irish women
Found this book written by Nuala O'Faolain after hearing a radio podcast about her life. The choice of books hardback and paperback were brilliant and the price, well to say it was... Read more
Published 1 month ago by cat 1
very beautiful, very honest
it seems amazing to me that a book such as this can capture so much - of irish culture, history and sensibility, of personal damage, and search for happiness. Read more
Published on 30 April 2009 by minty
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