Maeve Brennan: Wit, Style and Tragedy - An Irish Writer in New York [Paperback]

There are many reasons to read Homesick at the New Yorker. Among them, the book may be the only existing full-length biography of this talented and fascinating author. And Homesick at the New Yorker is well-written, indeed.

But there are shortcomings to this account of Maeve Brennan's life. The review prior to this one speculates that author Angela Bourke may have found her subject illusive. And that may be the case. But what certainly is the case is that Bourke's resulting portrait of Brennan is somewhat blurred. Is it because Brennan moves out of scope of the camera just as the shutter is capturing the image...or is it that Bourke's camera itself is moving? I don't know for certain. But repeatedly, just as it seems we're homing in for some tasty detail or substantive level of depth, Bourke takes off in another direction, and the initial thread is dropped. Frustrating.

The very restraint that makes Bourke's prose so neat and elegant may also serve to diminish the overall impact of the book. Often the author brings us close to gaining insight about Maeve Brennan, and then abruptly pulls down the shade, as if it would be too embarrassing for her, us, or Brennan, to see what would be revealed if she analyzed her subject a bit more closely. Brennan's relationship with her father comes to mind; it seems an extremely important and complex relationship, but beyond stating that fact, Bourke doesn't pursue it. What conflicts did it create? What are the implications for her work? relationships? etc. Perhaps the author figured she could drop the ingredients onto the pages and readers could bake up our own conclusions, but I'd like to have had a few of her *theories* served straight up. I have few if any theories on Maeve Brennan myself, but Angela Bourke must, after clearly having spent a great deal of time researching Brennan.

Another example, Brennan's relationship with her husband. Bourke may be trying to be journalistic, keeping distance from her subject(s), but the result is basically: they did this, and then they did this, and then they did this, and someone said this about them--but not what any of that might *mean* or how it would foreshadow X, or how that was reminiscent of Y, or how it seems to have affected Z. I suppose what I am saying is the author seems to keep too polite a distance from Maeve Brennan.

Finally, the review prior to this one also commented positively on Bourke's frequent mentions of Irish history, in context of Brennan's life. To me, Bourke's attempt to braid her own interests in Irish history, Irish nationalism, and Irish language movement into the narrative of Brennan's life seemed gratuitous and somewhat self-indulgent. There are entire passages that could have been edited out. Not that they weren't in some way interesting, but they had little or no bearing -- neither direct not distant -- on Brennan's life or work. Consequently, these references were distracting and ultimately irritating, rather than illuminating.

Perhaps Angela Bourke is more comfortable in the realm of "facts," rather than speculation or analysis. One biography cannot ever be the only biography. And perhaps this one will spur on others to research and write about Maeve Brennan. And, even if not, Homesick at the New Yorker is, quite lovely indeed, in many ways, a very nice read, even if it isn't everything that might be hoped for.

Angela Bourke, who has written a serviceable biography of Maeve Brennan, must have cringed when marketing suggested she include the totem words "The New Yorker" in the subtitle of her book.

It is such bad taste to try to sell this book by linking it to the supposed chic of THE NEW YORKER. Imagine a comparable biography of, say, JD Salinger with the subtitle, "He Wrote for THE NEW YORKER." How reductive, how pointless, to make her reputation depend, like the sword of Damocles, on the perceived glamour of the magazine!

Brennan, with two spiritual homes, one in New York, one in Ireland, was always homesick for whichever one she wasn't in. The subtitle, with its suggestion of "homeless" as well as "homesick," hints at her eventual destination: pauperhood, madness, wandering the streets like the lowest of the low. It's a sad story indeed, and more of an indictment of The New Yorker's corporate philosophy then anything else. If they stop glittering, chuck them out I guess! Watch out, Hilton Als! Alex Ross, you too!

I like the book but I think Bourke is a little guilty of overselling her wares. One sentence in particular floored me, "Her effect on the people who met her, her eye for human behavior, clothing and interiors, her unsparing reading of literature, her memory of home and her courageous life as a woman alone in metropolitan America make her an icon of the twentieth century." Excuse me, but no, they don't. Angela Bourke, may I introduce you to the word "icon"? It's in the dictionary. It doesn't mean Maeve Brennan.

I really wanted to learn more about Maeve Brennan, but we got stuck with every detail around her in this book, like we wanted to learn about this colorful carousel, but all we got were details of the circus!