Guest at the Feast
From the melancholy and amusement within the work of the writer John McGahern to an extraordinary essay on his own cancer diagnosis, Toibin delineates the bleakness and strangeness of life and also its richness and its complexity. As he reveals the shades of light and dark in a Venice without tourists and the streets of Buenos Aires riddled with disappearances, we find ourselves considering law and religion in Ireland as well as the intricacies of Marilynne Robinson's fiction.
The imprint of the written word on the private self, as Toibin himself remarks, is extraordinarily powerful. In this collection, that power is gloriously alive, illuminating history and literature, politics and power, family and the self.
Review: Droll, careful reflections on Ireland, illness and religion in a welcome collection of essays . . . [the] melancholy elegance of the prose guarantees the reader's enjoyment * Guardian *
Erudite, forensic, moving and wry . . . the breadth of the collection is impressive: a snapshot of Irish society over decades; Buenos Aires, in the wake of thousands of 'disappeared' people; Covid-era Venice . . . a lesson in how the right words in the right order can get to the truth of the matter * Irish Times *
[These essays] are always interesting and intelligent, written in an admirably clear prose free of academic jargon . . . journalism at its best. I learned a lot from them and am grateful for that. It's a collection to which I will surely return, just as I do to Orwell's, Ian Jack's, Ferdinand Mount's and Patrick Marnham's * Scotsman *
A feast for the reader . . . the novelist applies his inquisitive and empathetic mind in wide-ranging series of essays, from the political to the poignant . . . [Toibin] seeks no lessons; he tries only to be good company on the page. (He succeeds.) * Irish Independent *
Erudite essays from one of the world's finest writers . . . Throughout, the poetry of Toibin's prose is as impressive as always. In [the] title piece, he writes that his mother was 'what most of us still write for: the ordinary reader, curious and intelligent and demanding, ready to be moved and changed.' Readers like her will savor every page of this book * Kirkus Reviews, starred *
The clarity of the novelist's descriptive ability shines through essays on topics ranging from his treatment for cancer to the joys of an empty Venice . . . On every subject, Toibin's writing is what people these days inevitably describe as nuanced, a word that has become a kind of shorthand for expressing a person's rare ability to understand . . . the foibles of others -- Rachel Cooke * Observer, Book of the Day *
I love everything Colm Toibin has written -- Nicola Sturgeon * New Statesman *
I wanted to read out loud, to fully savour writing that is so careful and so lyrical -- Laura Hackett * Sunday Times *
Reading Irish novelist, playwright and poet Colm Toibin is always a delight * Independent *
Both epic and intimate . . . a moving portrait of three generations of sprawling, loving, fractious family life . . . a triumph * Financial Times on The Magician *
A work of art, an emotional reckoning with a century of change * The Times on The Magician *