Patricia Falvey

This book, set as it is in Ireland in the early twentieth century, was the perfect book for me. Ireland now is quite different from the Ireland at that time but it is one of my favourite places so I love reading about it in times past. Also I love to read books set during the Easter Uprising. That rebellion didn't immediately succeed in Ireland gaining independence from Britain but it was a seminal event. Adding to my enjoyment was the fact that I had just slogged through One Hundred Years of Solitude hoping to find some redeeming quality that justifies it's elevated place in world literature (I didn't).

The "girls" of the title are two girls of the same age but from vastly different backgrounds.Rosie Killeen is a farmer's daughter and Victoria Bell is the daughter of the local Anglo-Irish gentry. Ennismore is the name of the estate that the Bell's own in the west of Ireland. The two girls meet when Rosie, aged 8, is hired to work for the day in the kitchen because extra hands are needed for a visit from Queen Victoria. After the queen leaves little Victoria takes the model boat the queen gave her as a birthday present to the lake and lets it out of her grasp. Rosie comes upon her crying over the loss and jumps into the lake to retrieve it. Victoria is awestruck by Rosie's courage and daring and begs that she be allowed to attend classes with her in the manor house. Lady Bell is opposed but Lord Bell thinks that this could be a good thing for Victoria so he agrees. Victoria's governess, her aunt, is not pleased by this turn of events but as a spinster reliant upon her sister and brother-in-law's beneficience she can't do much about it. For the next ten years Rosie and Victoria are constant companions and best friends but Rosie is always aware of the class differences between them. When Rosie's sister, who works as a maid in Ennismore, falls ill Rosie has to take her place working in the house. When Victoria goes to Dublin to take her place in society for the Season she offers Rosie the position as her personal maid. Rosie is extremely offended and refuses causing a rift between the two. Both of them end up in Dublin but have little interaction as World War I and then the Easter Rebellion impacts everyone. Rosie is involved with the rebellion; Victoria has sympathy for the demands of the Irish but as gentry she is seen as being on the other side. Events cause Rosie and Victoria to cast aside their differences and the two resume their friendship. Will they also find love with their heart's desire?

This isn't great literature as One Hundred Years of Solitude is supposed to be but for me it was a great deal more satisfying.… (altro)

Eight-year-old Eileen O’Neill of Glenlea, northern Ireland, feels secure, despite tense adult conversation swirling around her in summer 1905. After all, her doting father has, on a whim, brought home pots of yellow paint for their house and turns the painting into a game. Also, the house sits beneath a mountain of physical and spiritual beauty that represents her proud heritage. Eileen has so much to be thankful for. Even if Da seems to have trouble making the family farm pay, the warmth of home outweighs potential threats.

But the Catholic O’Neills live in county Armagh, dominated by Protestants, the more aggressive of whom think nothing of seizing Catholic property or chasing Catholic laborers out of jobs Protestants might want. And when personal misfortunes strike the family, life comes crashing down around their ears.

The Yellow House follows Eileen’s checkered adolescent years and young adulthood through the First World War and the civil war that follows, including her employment at a spinning mill, and her attraction to two older men. There’s James Conlon, a passionate nationalist whose fire appeals to her; she appreciates a fighter, since her family claims warrior ancestry. Then there’s Owen Sheridan, scion to the Quaker mill owner, the opposite of James—measured, sensitive, harder to define, and steadier. He’s also out of bounds, as a Protestant and member of the industrial gentry.

Falvey does best, I think, conveying a society craving a place to belong, hence the value assigned to home and land, and the violence that’s partly a response to dispossession. I can recall only a couple historical novels published here about the Irish civil war, so The Yellow House helps fill that void. I particularly like how she portrays the hard-nosed romantic revolutionaries, who act as though the end always justifies the means, and who love a martyr’s funeral. She renders the mill workers with care as well; these people are trying to get by, thrive on gossip, and will skewer anybody who sticks out from the herd. Eileen provides a ready target.

Occasionally, the prose touches poetry. But overall, the novel disappoints. Eileen, though not a complex character, at least lives in an intriguing predicament, and you want her to find happiness. Theresa, her closest friend, comes through just enough. But the central male characters are types with fewer facets, the firebrand James especially. Perhaps that’s because the narrative often tells what qualities they have, and how Eileen feels afterward, sometimes in a list—anger, joy, etc. Maybe other readers don’t mind that approach, perhaps even find it helpful, but I feel cheated, fobbed off by a generic description. Why should I care, if the author doesn’t?

To her credit, Falvey smashes her heroine hard; Eileen suffers many painful reverses. I wish, though, they were less predictable, didn’t feel ordained. To cite a minor example, the night Da brings home the yellow paint, he’s forgotten the flour and meat his wife wanted. Fun but irresponsible, you think; and sure enough, paragraphs later, he reveals he’s sold some acreage without telling her. Since he’s a recognizable type (and never surprises), you expect the troubles that follow. He’s not strong enough to make a contingency plan or resist effectively. Besides, what drags him down has been dropped into conversation, so it’s inevitable.

At first, I wondered whether Falvey was trying to create a fatalistic universe in which tragedy is inescapable; but no. However often Eileen tells herself that as a poor, Catholic woman she has no standing, she acts differently. She’s a scrapper, never seriously embraces the chance that her circumstances might trap her forever. Nor does she reflect overmuch on her hard life, even less on choices she’s made. When things go wrong, she shouts her anger and pain—she shouts frequently—but moves on afterward in haste. She expresses shock at her reverses, but I’m not convinced; it’s as though she knows what’s in store.

This sense of life ordained affects how the author renders the historical background. Falvey has people anticipate general European war, not only in 1914 but years beforehand, and speak of it in terms nobody used back then and with prescience they couldn’t have possessed. But careless historical research by itself doesn’t undo The Yellow House. What hurts this novel are the generic characters and situations, such that you don’t need tea leaves to guess where the story will go next.… (altro)

The Girls of Ennismore. Patricia Falvey. 2017. Why do these recent books all have “girl(s) in the title? Not my intention. Anyway after the edgy-ness of the two previous novels I opted for a simple historical romance. This was a good one. Victoria, the daughter of the owner of the landed estate, Ennismore, meets Rosie, the daughter of a local farmer. She begs her father to allow Rosie to be her playmate. Much to the dismay of Victoria’s mother, Rosie joins Victoria in the school room and at play. Rosie learns to appreciate the finer things of life only to be sent back to her cottage when Victoria is presented. Rosie belongs in neither the world of the landed gentry nor the farm life she is born into. Interwoven in the lives of the two young women is the history of Ireland and its struggle for Home Rule. Both the Irish and the English sides are presented. This was an interesting book and the love interests make if a nice, clean romance.… (altro)

I had no idea how powerful this book would be when I opened it's cover. I choose it at a book sale for it's cover and title alone. Before reading it I checked out a few reviews online and found many readers were disappointed...I didn't find any of their disappointments however. The characters were strongly drawn and if ever you felt frustrated with them for a moment you could see that what you might have perceived as a lack of worldliness they more than made up for with perception and strength of conviction. The time and place are volatile centers for a story and the author carried gracefully through all the layers the sense of being there, not skimming the surface to fit it all in. Beautifully written with a story evocative of nothing short of real life. The end might be a tad predictable but you certainly couldn't predict the path to get there!… (altro)