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Solace
Mark Casey has left home, the rural Irish community where his family has farmed the same land for generations, to study for a doctorate in Dublin, a vibrant, contemporary city full of possibility. To his father, Tom, who needs help baling the hay and ploughing the fields, Mark's pursuit isn't work at all, and indeed Mark finds himself whiling away his time with pubs and parties. His is a life without focus or responsibility, until he meets Joanne Lynch, a trainee solicitor whom he finds irresistible. Joanne too has a past to escape from and for a brief time she and Mark share the chaos and rapture of a new love affair, until the lightning strike of tragedy changes everything.
341 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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1162 people want to read
About the author
Belinda McKeon
13 books135 followersBelinda McKeon’s debut novel Solace won the 2011 Faber Prize and was voted Irish Book of the Year, as well as being shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
Her second novel, Tender, will be published in the US by Lee Boudreaux Books in February 2016.
Her essays and journalism have appeared in the New York Times, the Paris Review, the Guardian, A Public Space and elsewhere. As a playwright, she has had work produced in Dublin and New York, and is currently under commission to the Abbey Theatre. She lives in Brooklyn and is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Creative Writing at Rutgers University.
Her second novel, Tender, will be published in the US by Lee Boudreaux Books in February 2016.
Her essays and journalism have appeared in the New York Times, the Paris Review, the Guardian, A Public Space and elsewhere. As a playwright, she has had work produced in Dublin and New York, and is currently under commission to the Abbey Theatre. She lives in Brooklyn and is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Creative Writing at Rutgers University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
October 11, 2015
Irish writers do melancholy best. We are a nation of Jaques' from As You Like It. Belinda McKeon tells a story which strangely parallels mine. We have Mark, a young guy who grew up in the Irish countryside, who decides to go to university the city to study English. However Mark's life is full of major setbacks that he must somehow overcome throughout the novel.
McKeon is a natural. Her ability to capture her character's voices is superb and this leads to one of the sweariest opening chapters to a novel that I've ever read. In Ireland, swearing isn't a taboo, it's an art form. We're a country that uses "fucker" and "cunt" as terms of affection. I fully admire a novel that doesn't hold back, this isn't Val Doonican's Ireland.
While I have to admit that it does buckle in a few place, this is overall an enjoyable read. It shows that this new generation of Irish writers are here to stay. And I can only welcome them.
McKeon is a natural. Her ability to capture her character's voices is superb and this leads to one of the sweariest opening chapters to a novel that I've ever read. In Ireland, swearing isn't a taboo, it's an art form. We're a country that uses "fucker" and "cunt" as terms of affection. I fully admire a novel that doesn't hold back, this isn't Val Doonican's Ireland.
While I have to admit that it does buckle in a few place, this is overall an enjoyable read. It shows that this new generation of Irish writers are here to stay. And I can only welcome them.
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June 13, 2017There were some very beautiful passages in this first novel set in modern-day Ireland and which tells a story of inter-generational conflict and inter-family rivalry.
The rural scenes worked best for me and I wanted more of those.
I liked the sub-plot about the eighteenth century author, Maria Edgeworth and was eager for it to be woven more satisfyingly into the main plot.
Here are some passages, which give an idea of the promise in Belinda McKeon’s writing:
“But, then, just as quickly, they looked away, to the baby again, and they were focused tight in on her as though on a button they were trying to unfasten; pulling the white cap back down on her head, taking the little hands and hiding them under white cotton cuffs, touching the tiny, crumpled face and willing it to smooth contentment. And at that kind of willing, that kind of wishing, they would spend, probably, most of the rest of their days.”
“Those first years, when he was small, there was pleasure just in watching him among the animals, the fields, the sheds that, before him, had only meant work or money. To see this boy stride around the farm, even if he was hardly taller than the sheepdog, even if he was in short trousers and red wellingtons, even if had a head of curls like a girl; even for all this, the sight of him there was like a prayer lodged in the mind and answered with every thought.”
“Mark could see his reflection in the glass against the darkness; he looked hard-faced, he thought, wild-haired, his shoulders hunched.....He looked like one of the farmers who lived nearby....The same way of walking, the same way of standing, the same way of looking up slowly and assessing whatever met their eye - a woman, an engine, a sky.”
And a final one:
“Faced with this silence that was Keogh’s kindness, he felt only light and bloodless, emptied of himself and of everything that fixed him to his standing. He needed something to shoulder against, something at which to pitch himself, muscled with the old fury, with the old contempt. But there was nothing.”
The rural scenes worked best for me and I wanted more of those.
I liked the sub-plot about the eighteenth century author, Maria Edgeworth and was eager for it to be woven more satisfyingly into the main plot.
Here are some passages, which give an idea of the promise in Belinda McKeon’s writing:
“But, then, just as quickly, they looked away, to the baby again, and they were focused tight in on her as though on a button they were trying to unfasten; pulling the white cap back down on her head, taking the little hands and hiding them under white cotton cuffs, touching the tiny, crumpled face and willing it to smooth contentment. And at that kind of willing, that kind of wishing, they would spend, probably, most of the rest of their days.”
“Those first years, when he was small, there was pleasure just in watching him among the animals, the fields, the sheds that, before him, had only meant work or money. To see this boy stride around the farm, even if he was hardly taller than the sheepdog, even if he was in short trousers and red wellingtons, even if had a head of curls like a girl; even for all this, the sight of him there was like a prayer lodged in the mind and answered with every thought.”
“Mark could see his reflection in the glass against the darkness; he looked hard-faced, he thought, wild-haired, his shoulders hunched.....He looked like one of the farmers who lived nearby....The same way of walking, the same way of standing, the same way of looking up slowly and assessing whatever met their eye - a woman, an engine, a sky.”
And a final one:
“Faced with this silence that was Keogh’s kindness, he felt only light and bloodless, emptied of himself and of everything that fixed him to his standing. He needed something to shoulder against, something at which to pitch himself, muscled with the old fury, with the old contempt. But there was nothing.”
April 7, 2012
I must admit that I feel a bit duped by the hype for this novel. It was nominated for the Orange Prize (UK award for best novel by female author written in English), and it received such glowing reviews from Colm Toibin and Ann Enright (The Gathering is wonderful), that I was convinced that this one would sing to my soul. Good job by Scribner marketing, I guess.
I did enjoy the novel to a certain extent. Tom Casey is a wonderful, well drawn character, and the scenes on the farm are vivid and poignant. The aging and ailing academic, Clive Robinson, was also nicely fleshed out. I wished for more detail about the time that Joanne spent as his student, and felt that that would have lent her character more dimension. As it is written, there isn't much that supports Robinson and Joanne's connection beyond the fact that she was inspired by a book from his syllabus.
Mark Casey I found to be self absorbed and thoroughly unlikeable. He egregiously neglects his parents, his girlfriend, his daughter, and his shoddy, ill-conceived thesis.
Mark and Tom suffer a terrible loss, their weak & adversarial relationship is tested and...remains weak. Where is the solace in that?
I did enjoy the novel to a certain extent. Tom Casey is a wonderful, well drawn character, and the scenes on the farm are vivid and poignant. The aging and ailing academic, Clive Robinson, was also nicely fleshed out. I wished for more detail about the time that Joanne spent as his student, and felt that that would have lent her character more dimension. As it is written, there isn't much that supports Robinson and Joanne's connection beyond the fact that she was inspired by a book from his syllabus.
Mark Casey I found to be self absorbed and thoroughly unlikeable. He egregiously neglects his parents, his girlfriend, his daughter, and his shoddy, ill-conceived thesis.
Mark and Tom suffer a terrible loss, their weak & adversarial relationship is tested and...remains weak. Where is the solace in that?
August 16, 2023
Setting: Dublin and Longford, Irish Republic.
Finished, with a long sigh - but not of relief that it's finally over, far from it. Rather a sigh of regret that the tale is over and a longing to hear more of Mark, his father Tom and his child Aoife....
Mark has left the family farm in Longford and is studying for his PhD in Dublin whilst also doing some part-time teaching at the university. Yet, as he struggles to write his thesis on local author Maria Edgeworth, he is constantly under pressure from his father to return to the farm at weekends to help out. Driven to despair by the demands of his father and his thesis supervisor, Mark is at the end of his tether - and then he meets trainee solicitor Joanne and everything else pales into insignificance.
The couple are soon best friends and lovers, even though Mark has discovered that she is the daughter of a solicitor with whom his father had a serious fall-out several years earlier over the inheritance of a local farm. Mark braces himself for the repercussions when he reveals this information - but then is forced to do so when Joanne unexpectedly falls pregnant.
Eventually, Mark and Joanne establish a reasonable relationship with Mark's parents, particularly his mother Maura. All is going well - not a good sign in an Irish novel! - until a tragedy occurs ....
I have never read any of this author's work before but it is very much in the vein of my favourite Irish authors. With Irish novels, I increasingly find that there is some sort of formula: I can always rely on understated yet lyrical prose, characters who come to life with all their flaws and foibles, storylines that draw you in and leave you wanting more, tragic events that are somehow coped with in one way or another. So, with this one, yet another Irish novel that has moved me to tears at the end - both because of the story and because it has ended! - 9.5/10.
Finished, with a long sigh - but not of relief that it's finally over, far from it. Rather a sigh of regret that the tale is over and a longing to hear more of Mark, his father Tom and his child Aoife....
Mark has left the family farm in Longford and is studying for his PhD in Dublin whilst also doing some part-time teaching at the university. Yet, as he struggles to write his thesis on local author Maria Edgeworth, he is constantly under pressure from his father to return to the farm at weekends to help out. Driven to despair by the demands of his father and his thesis supervisor, Mark is at the end of his tether - and then he meets trainee solicitor Joanne and everything else pales into insignificance.
The couple are soon best friends and lovers, even though Mark has discovered that she is the daughter of a solicitor with whom his father had a serious fall-out several years earlier over the inheritance of a local farm. Mark braces himself for the repercussions when he reveals this information - but then is forced to do so when Joanne unexpectedly falls pregnant.
Eventually, Mark and Joanne establish a reasonable relationship with Mark's parents, particularly his mother Maura. All is going well - not a good sign in an Irish novel! - until a tragedy occurs ....
I have never read any of this author's work before but it is very much in the vein of my favourite Irish authors. With Irish novels, I increasingly find that there is some sort of formula: I can always rely on understated yet lyrical prose, characters who come to life with all their flaws and foibles, storylines that draw you in and leave you wanting more, tragic events that are somehow coped with in one way or another. So, with this one, yet another Irish novel that has moved me to tears at the end - both because of the story and because it has ended! - 9.5/10.
August 17, 2019
Do yourself a favour - skip this and read Tender. McKeon really comes into her own in her second novel about a woman who goes to Trinity and falls in love.
It may also just be that books about Irish sons + Irish fathers may just not be my thing, after reading this and John McGahern’s The Dark.
Did not like main male characters, found them insufferable, especially Mark. Story was dull and I kept waiting for a point - it never happened. Women were great but did not get a big enough role.
It may also just be that books about Irish sons + Irish fathers may just not be my thing, after reading this and John McGahern’s The Dark.
Did not like main male characters, found them insufferable, especially Mark. Story was dull and I kept waiting for a point - it never happened. Women were great but did not get a big enough role.
August 13, 2012
Very disappointing. Mark Casey is a selfish and unlikeable character. I felt the story skimmed over parts were I would have liked more detail, such as Mark & Joannes relationship and then gave too much detail on other parts like Marks thesis which I didn't find interesting at all and once I had finished the book I didn't see the relevance of it all.
January 7, 2013
A little depressing with a disappointing finish
July 1, 2020
I cannot for the life of me figure out why McKeon does not get more attention from American literary circles. There is enough room for her and Rooney! This was a lovely book and reminded me so much of my rural, Michigan upbringing. That said, her accurate description of PhD work gave me PTSD so I didn’t like it as much as Tender! ;)
September 18, 2011
Solace, the debut novel from Irish poet and playwright Belinda McKeon, which has been getting a lot of attention lately, is a family drama, or more precisely, an exploration of the bonds and difficulties that exist between a father and a son. We initially encounter this particular father and son in a prologue that is really taken, not from the beginning of the book, but from its middle, a choice that’s partly good, and partly not-so-good.
The father is Tom Casey, a taciturn, hard-bitten, hard-working farmer in County Longford in southern Ireland. Tom is a man whose education and interests are quite limited. He knows all about honor, though, and loyalty and responsibility. There are those who would do well to take a leaf or two from Tom Casey’s book, even though he isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, perfect. And while Tom loves his family fiercely, like the old fashioned man he is, he also expects them to obey. In Tom Casey’s house, Tom Casey’s word is law.
The person Tom understands least is his own son, Mark, who, as the book opens, is down from Dublin for the summer with his young daughter, Aiofe, to help his father with the baling of the hay. The two men eye each other with suspicion and mistrust. Tom sees Mark as sullen, while Mark resents Tom’s attentions to Aiofe. (That strange – to American ears – name seems to be pronounced ee-FA.) In the book’s opening pages, we get a sense of the strained relationship between Tom and Mark, and we also get the sense that something significant has happened that affects, not just these two men, but the entire Casey family. It isn’t what’s said; it’s what’s unsaid. It’s in the looks the local shopgirls give Tom and Aiofe as they make their purchases. And this isn’t the first time those looks have been given:
It was as familiar to him by now as the sight of his own eyes in the bathroom mirror, the look that he had caught on their faces: fear and thrill and greed and pure excitement; a glimpse right into the wreckage on the side of the road.
After presenting us with the prologue, McKeon moves the reader back in time to the events that set her story in motion, back to Mark’s days as a student at Trinity College in Dublin. Unlike his father, Mark never had any use for rural life, and he was relieved to leave the farm for Dublin and Trinity. But Mark doesn’t really fit in with “big city” life, either. He’s a PhD candidate, writing a thesis on the work of Maria Edgeworth, a writer who was from the same part of Ireland as Mark, and whose family's former ascendancy estate now houses the hospital where Mark's mother, Maura, used to work as a nurse. Like many grad students, Mark finds he’s late turning in the next chapter of his thesis; in fact, he’s pretty much lost interest in school and would rather drift along, drinking beer and frittering away his time.
Mark’s life changes when he meets pretty, green-eyed, trainee solicitor, Joanne Lynch, who just happens to have grown up very close to Mark’s family’s home. More outgoing that Tom, and more energetic, Joanne might seem, at first glance, to be just what Mark needs in order to turn his stalled life around. There’s a huge problem, however. Joanne’s late father was a real scoundrel, a swindler, and one of the persons he swindled was Tom Casey. And Tom Casey still bears a grudge against the Lynch family, a grudge that will come into play when Mark and Joanne embark upon an intense love affair, one that quickly produces the couple's daughter, the charming Aiofa.
This “ancient grudge” theme is a familiar one in Irish literature. It’s been done before, and I really can’t say it’s done best in Solace. It isn’t. Edna O’Brien did a far better job working with the “ancient grudge” theme in Wild Decembers, for example. And if one wants the best example of a “continuation of the parents’ feud” one need look no further than Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The “ancient grudge” and the “continuation of the parents’ feud,” however, aren’t the main themes of this novel. The father-son relationship, and the divide between the rural/traditional and the city/progressive ways of life always take center stage. Joanne even has a small subplot that revolves around the parent-child relationship, around family inheritance and family responsibility, but this subplot isn’t as developed or as significant as it could have been.
To tell you that a tragic event takes place just past the midpoint of this book probably isn’t going to come as any surprise. It’s been foreshadowed in this review, and that’s only because McKeon foreshadows it so strongly in her book. Far too strongly, I think. I was surprised that the author gave so much away so soon, given how subtle she was in her writing regarding other things, e.g., a physical fight between Tom and Mark.
One professional reviewer characterized the tragedy that befalls the Casey family as one “which even Hardy might have found it difficult to deal.” I can’t agree with that. My goodness, has the reviewer not read Jude the Obscure? Thomas Hardy wasn’t afraid to tackle any tragedy, and while the bereavement in Solace is truly terrible and truly tragic, it’s not something that’s unique to the Casey family. That doesn’t mean I didn’t care. I did. At least I tried to. It does, however, mean that the book isn’t as fresh and original as it could have been. In some ways, I thought McKeon was taking the easy way out. There were so many other ways, ways that hadn’t been done to death, to throw Tom and Mark, and even Aiofe, together and test their relationships and their boundaries.
Three very different characters – Mark, Tom, and Joanne – function as point-of-view characters in this novel. While I thought Tom was particularly well drawn, I can’t say the same for Mark and Joanne. Joanne’s a likable girl, filled with energy and spirit. We know too little about Joanne, though, her deeper feelings about Mark and Aiofe and her own parents.
I have to admit, I didn’t like Mark at all. He seemed downright childish and hateful when he observes, with much disdain, that Tom doesn’t even know the meaning of “ignorant” and when noting another farmer’s talk about “global warning.” I don’t need to like every character I encounter in a novel. In fact, sometimes the ones I don’t like are the most interesting. And there’s the rub. Not only is Mark unlikable, he’s extremely dull and uninteresting as well. Nothing, not even Joanne or Aiofe seems to awaken a spark of passion in this fumbling, callow, and self-centered young man. While reading, I was always anxious to leave Joanne’s and Mark’s words behind and get back to Tom’s.
The very best thing about Solace is the character of Tom Casey. Now, Tom is definitely not dull and callow. In many ways, Tom is very ordinary and unremarkable. He’s a hard-working man who adores his young granddaughter and finds it difficult to get along with his grown son, a son who has very different ideas about life and how it should be lived. Tom, though, possesses a vitality, and yes, even a charm, that all of the other characters in Solace lack. I felt the uniqueness of Tom, the genuineness. One of the novel’s best and most genuine scenes revolves around Tom as he’s first taken aback by one of Aiofe’s tantrums, then finds the whole thing laughable, then dissolves into tears, the tears he had been, until that point, unable to shed. It’s the character of Tom Casey who brings this book to life. He’s just a magnificent creation.
As unlikable as I found Mark, I did like the way McKeon refused to judge her characters. All of them are, in their own way, greatly flawed human beings, and fallible, never wholly “right” and never wholly “wrong.” This refusal to judge reminded me of Kent Haruf’s beautiful novels Plainsong and Eventide, both of which I loved, and of course, of William Trevor, though McKeon definitely isn’t on par with either of those great authors. I’m not saying she couldn’t be in the future, just that she isn’t there yet despite the praise Solace has received.
The prose in this novel is adequate, but except for snatches here and there, not great. I did like McKeon’s understatement, and I thought it fit well into the Irish tradition of John McGahern, Brian Moore, and William Trevor, for instance. But unlike those giants of Irish literature, McKeon seems so afraid of falling into sentimentality that she almost completely avoids any expression of emotion, leaving her book rather flat and monotone, and failing, most of the time, to engage at least one reader. The stark tension and pinpoint focus of the prologue, which really is wonderfully written, is sadly lost in stale jokes and too many details for the balance for the book.
And there’s altogether too much “telling” in this novel as opposed to “showing.” A prime example is a physical altercation between Tom and Mark. This should have been a raw, visceral scene, but McKeon fails to give us any of that raw emotion:
Then he (Tom) went deep, went fast, moved as though on ice through convolutions of his own invention, through spirals that could not be anticipated and could not be stopped; he was fluent, exhilarated, alight.
It’s pretty, though chilly, writing, but it leaves one uninvolved, and one of the fiction writer’s highest goals should be to involve the reader as much as possible. Except for Tom, and then not all the time, McKeon’s understatement left me unable to connect with this novel, unable to work up much caring one way or the other about things even though I really wanted to care. Sometimes raw emotion – even sentimentality – is a good thing. One just needs to use it sparingly.
McKeon does have a wonderful gift for description. Her snapshots of rural Irish life in County Longford are both charming and intoxicating:
It had been a beautiful summer’s evening. It had been hard to want to be anywhere else, looking out at the meadows stretching golden against the sunset, and at the small lake beyond them, and at the bruised blue and grey of the hills on the horizon.
And lest the reader forget that this is Ireland in crisis, in the midst of a financial meltdown:
Inside those houses on those hills were people, and people made everything difficult; tripped over one another and tripped one another up.
While the romance between Mark and Joanne felt inauthentic, and therefore failed to move me, I was moved by McKeon’s images of life in rural Ireland. For example, a frosted tractor window that looks like it’s not “one pane of glass but a thousand tiny chips, held together for one last moment within the square of the frame,” could also be a metaphor for the fragile depiction of human relationships and human life found in this book. It was a beautiful image and one I won’t forget. I was also moved by Maura Casey as she regards the sexual adventures of the young “with a mixture of envy and exhaustion.” Now that’s real humor. Gentle humor. Grown up humor as opposed to Mark’s cruder expressions, which I didn’t enjoy at all.
McKeon balances character and plot well, but in the end, I just didn’t think there was enough plot in this book – no more than what’s on the flyleaf, really – to sustain a whole novel, and I’m a person who greatly prefers character driven novels. I think Solace might have worked better as a longer short story, about the length of Claire Keegan’s beautiful and moving Foster. I’ll definitely take a look at anything else McKeon writes, however, but though I tried, this book really didn’t do it for me.
3/5 (The three stars are for the character of Tom Casey.)
Recommended: In general, no, not unless you like books that are fairly static.
You can read my book reviews and tips for writers at literarycornercafe.blogspot.com
The father is Tom Casey, a taciturn, hard-bitten, hard-working farmer in County Longford in southern Ireland. Tom is a man whose education and interests are quite limited. He knows all about honor, though, and loyalty and responsibility. There are those who would do well to take a leaf or two from Tom Casey’s book, even though he isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, perfect. And while Tom loves his family fiercely, like the old fashioned man he is, he also expects them to obey. In Tom Casey’s house, Tom Casey’s word is law.
The person Tom understands least is his own son, Mark, who, as the book opens, is down from Dublin for the summer with his young daughter, Aiofe, to help his father with the baling of the hay. The two men eye each other with suspicion and mistrust. Tom sees Mark as sullen, while Mark resents Tom’s attentions to Aiofe. (That strange – to American ears – name seems to be pronounced ee-FA.) In the book’s opening pages, we get a sense of the strained relationship between Tom and Mark, and we also get the sense that something significant has happened that affects, not just these two men, but the entire Casey family. It isn’t what’s said; it’s what’s unsaid. It’s in the looks the local shopgirls give Tom and Aiofe as they make their purchases. And this isn’t the first time those looks have been given:
It was as familiar to him by now as the sight of his own eyes in the bathroom mirror, the look that he had caught on their faces: fear and thrill and greed and pure excitement; a glimpse right into the wreckage on the side of the road.
After presenting us with the prologue, McKeon moves the reader back in time to the events that set her story in motion, back to Mark’s days as a student at Trinity College in Dublin. Unlike his father, Mark never had any use for rural life, and he was relieved to leave the farm for Dublin and Trinity. But Mark doesn’t really fit in with “big city” life, either. He’s a PhD candidate, writing a thesis on the work of Maria Edgeworth, a writer who was from the same part of Ireland as Mark, and whose family's former ascendancy estate now houses the hospital where Mark's mother, Maura, used to work as a nurse. Like many grad students, Mark finds he’s late turning in the next chapter of his thesis; in fact, he’s pretty much lost interest in school and would rather drift along, drinking beer and frittering away his time.
Mark’s life changes when he meets pretty, green-eyed, trainee solicitor, Joanne Lynch, who just happens to have grown up very close to Mark’s family’s home. More outgoing that Tom, and more energetic, Joanne might seem, at first glance, to be just what Mark needs in order to turn his stalled life around. There’s a huge problem, however. Joanne’s late father was a real scoundrel, a swindler, and one of the persons he swindled was Tom Casey. And Tom Casey still bears a grudge against the Lynch family, a grudge that will come into play when Mark and Joanne embark upon an intense love affair, one that quickly produces the couple's daughter, the charming Aiofa.
This “ancient grudge” theme is a familiar one in Irish literature. It’s been done before, and I really can’t say it’s done best in Solace. It isn’t. Edna O’Brien did a far better job working with the “ancient grudge” theme in Wild Decembers, for example. And if one wants the best example of a “continuation of the parents’ feud” one need look no further than Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The “ancient grudge” and the “continuation of the parents’ feud,” however, aren’t the main themes of this novel. The father-son relationship, and the divide between the rural/traditional and the city/progressive ways of life always take center stage. Joanne even has a small subplot that revolves around the parent-child relationship, around family inheritance and family responsibility, but this subplot isn’t as developed or as significant as it could have been.
To tell you that a tragic event takes place just past the midpoint of this book probably isn’t going to come as any surprise. It’s been foreshadowed in this review, and that’s only because McKeon foreshadows it so strongly in her book. Far too strongly, I think. I was surprised that the author gave so much away so soon, given how subtle she was in her writing regarding other things, e.g., a physical fight between Tom and Mark.
One professional reviewer characterized the tragedy that befalls the Casey family as one “which even Hardy might have found it difficult to deal.” I can’t agree with that. My goodness, has the reviewer not read Jude the Obscure? Thomas Hardy wasn’t afraid to tackle any tragedy, and while the bereavement in Solace is truly terrible and truly tragic, it’s not something that’s unique to the Casey family. That doesn’t mean I didn’t care. I did. At least I tried to. It does, however, mean that the book isn’t as fresh and original as it could have been. In some ways, I thought McKeon was taking the easy way out. There were so many other ways, ways that hadn’t been done to death, to throw Tom and Mark, and even Aiofe, together and test their relationships and their boundaries.
Three very different characters – Mark, Tom, and Joanne – function as point-of-view characters in this novel. While I thought Tom was particularly well drawn, I can’t say the same for Mark and Joanne. Joanne’s a likable girl, filled with energy and spirit. We know too little about Joanne, though, her deeper feelings about Mark and Aiofe and her own parents.
I have to admit, I didn’t like Mark at all. He seemed downright childish and hateful when he observes, with much disdain, that Tom doesn’t even know the meaning of “ignorant” and when noting another farmer’s talk about “global warning.” I don’t need to like every character I encounter in a novel. In fact, sometimes the ones I don’t like are the most interesting. And there’s the rub. Not only is Mark unlikable, he’s extremely dull and uninteresting as well. Nothing, not even Joanne or Aiofe seems to awaken a spark of passion in this fumbling, callow, and self-centered young man. While reading, I was always anxious to leave Joanne’s and Mark’s words behind and get back to Tom’s.
The very best thing about Solace is the character of Tom Casey. Now, Tom is definitely not dull and callow. In many ways, Tom is very ordinary and unremarkable. He’s a hard-working man who adores his young granddaughter and finds it difficult to get along with his grown son, a son who has very different ideas about life and how it should be lived. Tom, though, possesses a vitality, and yes, even a charm, that all of the other characters in Solace lack. I felt the uniqueness of Tom, the genuineness. One of the novel’s best and most genuine scenes revolves around Tom as he’s first taken aback by one of Aiofe’s tantrums, then finds the whole thing laughable, then dissolves into tears, the tears he had been, until that point, unable to shed. It’s the character of Tom Casey who brings this book to life. He’s just a magnificent creation.
As unlikable as I found Mark, I did like the way McKeon refused to judge her characters. All of them are, in their own way, greatly flawed human beings, and fallible, never wholly “right” and never wholly “wrong.” This refusal to judge reminded me of Kent Haruf’s beautiful novels Plainsong and Eventide, both of which I loved, and of course, of William Trevor, though McKeon definitely isn’t on par with either of those great authors. I’m not saying she couldn’t be in the future, just that she isn’t there yet despite the praise Solace has received.
The prose in this novel is adequate, but except for snatches here and there, not great. I did like McKeon’s understatement, and I thought it fit well into the Irish tradition of John McGahern, Brian Moore, and William Trevor, for instance. But unlike those giants of Irish literature, McKeon seems so afraid of falling into sentimentality that she almost completely avoids any expression of emotion, leaving her book rather flat and monotone, and failing, most of the time, to engage at least one reader. The stark tension and pinpoint focus of the prologue, which really is wonderfully written, is sadly lost in stale jokes and too many details for the balance for the book.
And there’s altogether too much “telling” in this novel as opposed to “showing.” A prime example is a physical altercation between Tom and Mark. This should have been a raw, visceral scene, but McKeon fails to give us any of that raw emotion:
Then he (Tom) went deep, went fast, moved as though on ice through convolutions of his own invention, through spirals that could not be anticipated and could not be stopped; he was fluent, exhilarated, alight.
It’s pretty, though chilly, writing, but it leaves one uninvolved, and one of the fiction writer’s highest goals should be to involve the reader as much as possible. Except for Tom, and then not all the time, McKeon’s understatement left me unable to connect with this novel, unable to work up much caring one way or the other about things even though I really wanted to care. Sometimes raw emotion – even sentimentality – is a good thing. One just needs to use it sparingly.
McKeon does have a wonderful gift for description. Her snapshots of rural Irish life in County Longford are both charming and intoxicating:
It had been a beautiful summer’s evening. It had been hard to want to be anywhere else, looking out at the meadows stretching golden against the sunset, and at the small lake beyond them, and at the bruised blue and grey of the hills on the horizon.
And lest the reader forget that this is Ireland in crisis, in the midst of a financial meltdown:
Inside those houses on those hills were people, and people made everything difficult; tripped over one another and tripped one another up.
While the romance between Mark and Joanne felt inauthentic, and therefore failed to move me, I was moved by McKeon’s images of life in rural Ireland. For example, a frosted tractor window that looks like it’s not “one pane of glass but a thousand tiny chips, held together for one last moment within the square of the frame,” could also be a metaphor for the fragile depiction of human relationships and human life found in this book. It was a beautiful image and one I won’t forget. I was also moved by Maura Casey as she regards the sexual adventures of the young “with a mixture of envy and exhaustion.” Now that’s real humor. Gentle humor. Grown up humor as opposed to Mark’s cruder expressions, which I didn’t enjoy at all.
McKeon balances character and plot well, but in the end, I just didn’t think there was enough plot in this book – no more than what’s on the flyleaf, really – to sustain a whole novel, and I’m a person who greatly prefers character driven novels. I think Solace might have worked better as a longer short story, about the length of Claire Keegan’s beautiful and moving Foster. I’ll definitely take a look at anything else McKeon writes, however, but though I tried, this book really didn’t do it for me.
3/5 (The three stars are for the character of Tom Casey.)
Recommended: In general, no, not unless you like books that are fairly static.
You can read my book reviews and tips for writers at literarycornercafe.blogspot.com
December 31, 2020
Didn't resonate with me as much as Tender, but still wonderful. I'm also not going to slag off Belinda.
July 18, 2016
Didn’t like this quite as much as Tender even though the plot probably resonated more (Mark feeling the weight of his father’s expectations regarding the farm when he wants to pursue a life of academia removed from those obligations). She frames it in such a way that . For a debut novel it is extremely accomplished – there’s a lot going on, a lot of themes at work, but she keeps it all under control and with zero excess (if anything there could have been a bit more – I would have liked to have seen Joanne interact with her mother, for instance. Maybe. Maybe I would have liked that.) She is particularly good at evoking university life and the early stages of relationships. I love McKeon’s style!
This was the kind of worthy thing you did on a date early on, when you were still trying to impress each other, still telling each other stories about the kinds of people you were… And later, if you got to that later, you would see through those stories that you’d told each other, but by then it wouldn’t matter, either because you no longer cared about each other, or because you really did, because you no longer cared about anything else.
January 30, 2016
Having moved to Dublin, Mark is still writing his thesis as he approaches 30. Most of the time he is able to resist the demands of the family farm in Longford, but there are many weekends he must return to bale hay, test animals and deal with his father's resentment of his urban life. Joanne has also escaped to the capital, to become a trainee solicitor, away from the neglect and hostility of her family. Mark and Joanne fall in love as the Celtic Tiger begins to whimper, and the country around them is full of change.
This is a beautifully-observed and essentially-Irish story of love and family in contemporary Ireland. It describes a point in history where the traditional of the family farm is becoming financially unviable, and the resulting changes in the characteristics of many Irish families. Tom and Maura's relationship is beautifully told, as is Mark's relationship with each of his parents. Described accurately and, sometimes, uncomfortably, it is these relationships rather than the plot that propel the book forward.
Joanne and Mark are a tale of contemporary Irish families, and love in an Ireland that is more self-defined than ever before. Well worth a read.
This is a beautifully-observed and essentially-Irish story of love and family in contemporary Ireland. It describes a point in history where the traditional of the family farm is becoming financially unviable, and the resulting changes in the characteristics of many Irish families. Tom and Maura's relationship is beautifully told, as is Mark's relationship with each of his parents. Described accurately and, sometimes, uncomfortably, it is these relationships rather than the plot that propel the book forward.
Joanne and Mark are a tale of contemporary Irish families, and love in an Ireland that is more self-defined than ever before. Well worth a read.
August 22, 2011
An interesting work. I'm not sure that it lives up to the billing and the hype surrounding it. Some of the characterization is excellent - particularly Tom Casey. The book really comes alive when he's around. Other characters, though, seem to be mere ciphers to play a specific plot role. The sense of Dublin and students is good. The evocation of tragedy and the sense of solace are excellent but a little marred by various melodramas.
July 2, 2020
2.5 stars
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January 29, 2012
Solace is a novel about loss and the difficulty which so many people have communicating about important issues, particularly across generations. It is set against the background of Ireland in the early part of this century, at a time when rural areas continued to cling to traditional values and ways of life while brash modern Ireland epitomised by the Dublin property boom gradually began to impinge.
Mark Casey is a PhD student in Dublin, struggling with his thesis after losing enthusiasm for his work. He is writing about a Victorian novelist who lived near the small farming village where he was brought up – she once seemed important to him, but now seems irrelevant and lacking in interest. His parents, particularly his farmer father, cannot really understand what he is doing and why he doesn’t come home more regularly to help run the family farm. In reality, Mark hates the farm only a little less than he has come to dislike his academic work, and avoids going home as much as possible.
In Dublin, Mark meets Joanne who comes from close to his home and whose family have ties to his own, though not good ones. Like Mark, she also has a badly damaged relationship with her parents. They quickly embark on a passionate relationship which is shattered by a tragic accident, and much of the book is concerned about how Mark deals with the aftermath of this.
Solace is a novel which is beautifully written and with a strong sense of place, particularly in relation to the farming and rural scenes. Right from the beginning there is a sense that something has gone badly wrong – the book begins with a section from relatively late in the story line before flashing back to tell events from the start. It is a serious novel – the story is downbeat and there is little to lift the mood – but a rewarding one to read. The ending is an open one, so don’t expect a nicely rounded conclusion. The characters are convincing, and there are some very moving sequences. There were scenes when I felt that a key revelation was about to come, a pivotal episode or phrase which would get to the core of the novelist's intention, but it never quite seemed to happen. In the end I felt that this was deliberate – because failure to communicate is probably the most important theme of this novel. For instance, Joanne writes a message in a book of Mark’s, thinking that he will discover it at some future date, but he never does. And when Mark visits one of Joanne’s old lecturers there is a strong sense that something important is about to be revealed, which never quite materialises.
Overall then, a strong first novel which should appeal to readers of literary fiction, and a young Irish writer to watch with interest.
Mark Casey is a PhD student in Dublin, struggling with his thesis after losing enthusiasm for his work. He is writing about a Victorian novelist who lived near the small farming village where he was brought up – she once seemed important to him, but now seems irrelevant and lacking in interest. His parents, particularly his farmer father, cannot really understand what he is doing and why he doesn’t come home more regularly to help run the family farm. In reality, Mark hates the farm only a little less than he has come to dislike his academic work, and avoids going home as much as possible.
In Dublin, Mark meets Joanne who comes from close to his home and whose family have ties to his own, though not good ones. Like Mark, she also has a badly damaged relationship with her parents. They quickly embark on a passionate relationship which is shattered by a tragic accident, and much of the book is concerned about how Mark deals with the aftermath of this.
Solace is a novel which is beautifully written and with a strong sense of place, particularly in relation to the farming and rural scenes. Right from the beginning there is a sense that something has gone badly wrong – the book begins with a section from relatively late in the story line before flashing back to tell events from the start. It is a serious novel – the story is downbeat and there is little to lift the mood – but a rewarding one to read. The ending is an open one, so don’t expect a nicely rounded conclusion. The characters are convincing, and there are some very moving sequences. There were scenes when I felt that a key revelation was about to come, a pivotal episode or phrase which would get to the core of the novelist's intention, but it never quite seemed to happen. In the end I felt that this was deliberate – because failure to communicate is probably the most important theme of this novel. For instance, Joanne writes a message in a book of Mark’s, thinking that he will discover it at some future date, but he never does. And when Mark visits one of Joanne’s old lecturers there is a strong sense that something important is about to be revealed, which never quite materialises.
Overall then, a strong first novel which should appeal to readers of literary fiction, and a young Irish writer to watch with interest.
February 5, 2013
I did not like this book. I found it very dry and boring. I almost gave it one star but decided to go with two because there were a few chapters here and there that held my interest. I found myself at first skipping sentences, and then glossing over paragraphs because in my opinion, there was more description than dialogue and the description was overdone and much of it unnecessary. Without giving anything away, I would have preferred the tragedy take place earlier in the book and have more story on how Tom and Mark deal with the tragedy. I feel the way the author dealt with the tragedy was hurried.
August 2, 2017
I picked this up and put it down so many times. Somehow, try as I might, I just couldn't get into this book. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood, or the right life. I have to confess I abandoned it barely half read, unable to face picking it up again.
Read
February 4, 2019Sad but wonderful.
October 5, 2019
This book was incredibly beautiful, sensitive, and heart-breaking. I can’t wait for her to write another one.
September 18, 2013
I purchased this book for selfish reasons. A friend recommended it to me adding that my short story reminded him of it. I did not want to reciprocate any love; I just wanted to study it. And there I was with a fine-toothed comb ready to underline dialogue technique, similes and character developments – and that I did, that I did. What I did not expect was to obliviously fall into the trap of becoming emotionally involved with this story, like slowly being sucked back in by an ex – something only stellar novels achieve of the self-proclaimed strong and independent woman that I am.
Solace is the modern day story of a young Irish couple who are trying to find their paths in life. Both raised in the country, they meet in Dublin, become “no strings attached” romantically involved and then life decides to have its ways with them. It looks at interesting themes like contemporary Irish dating protocol, the difficulties of establishing a career, high prices of the city, keeping distance from parents and many more adults encounter in their 20s and 30s.
Truthfully speaking, it’s a slow moving novel and incredibly descriptive for which I can be a bit impatient at times. It makes reference to a lot of things Irish and of Dublin more specifically, so having lived there definitely helped me to identify with the plot. There were moments where I questioned the direction of the story and considered it almost too boring but after some patience I came to realise that such descriptions and background settings were necessary and quite apt considering Irish culture, where many issues are still considered taboo and therefore avoided in conversation – if you know what I am trying to say here. McKeon never shocks the reader and allows for maintenance of comfort and flow by subtly addressing these topics. Her technique is compelling.
The novel addresses several social issues from unplanned pregnancy and homosexuality to bereavement and even money. It considers how individuals and families cope with them and how men manage differently to women. McKeon very eloquently delivers powerful messages that are very true to Ireland today. She builds vivid settings with minimum storyline allowing for the smallest twist to achieve deep impact, which if you are in any way sensitive will have you engaged.
Towards the end and after some reflection I noticed some major character developments and even some nice parallels between them and the different stories that progress. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I hope that I even learned something new about writing technique as was my initial intention. It is definitely a book I would consider reading again, which for me is a big deal.
Solace is the modern day story of a young Irish couple who are trying to find their paths in life. Both raised in the country, they meet in Dublin, become “no strings attached” romantically involved and then life decides to have its ways with them. It looks at interesting themes like contemporary Irish dating protocol, the difficulties of establishing a career, high prices of the city, keeping distance from parents and many more adults encounter in their 20s and 30s.
Truthfully speaking, it’s a slow moving novel and incredibly descriptive for which I can be a bit impatient at times. It makes reference to a lot of things Irish and of Dublin more specifically, so having lived there definitely helped me to identify with the plot. There were moments where I questioned the direction of the story and considered it almost too boring but after some patience I came to realise that such descriptions and background settings were necessary and quite apt considering Irish culture, where many issues are still considered taboo and therefore avoided in conversation – if you know what I am trying to say here. McKeon never shocks the reader and allows for maintenance of comfort and flow by subtly addressing these topics. Her technique is compelling.
The novel addresses several social issues from unplanned pregnancy and homosexuality to bereavement and even money. It considers how individuals and families cope with them and how men manage differently to women. McKeon very eloquently delivers powerful messages that are very true to Ireland today. She builds vivid settings with minimum storyline allowing for the smallest twist to achieve deep impact, which if you are in any way sensitive will have you engaged.
Towards the end and after some reflection I noticed some major character developments and even some nice parallels between them and the different stories that progress. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I hope that I even learned something new about writing technique as was my initial intention. It is definitely a book I would consider reading again, which for me is a big deal.
December 30, 2018
4.5 stars. This was a beautiful novel - I loooove Belinda McKeon's writing. I liked the way she used the prologue to shape the framing of the central losses of the book, and how the narration slips between perspectives seamlessly. This novel is very sad, though, so if you like novels about grief (which I do) you will like it, but if not it will be beautiful and painful for you. I really related to Mark as he struggled to write his dissertation, especially after having a baby! McKeon captured that beautifully. She also profiled the post Celtic Tiger moment in Ireland so well, especially in the rural areas.
Read
May 27, 2018“Solace” should probably be titled “Lack of Solace.” Even in the face of unspeakable tragedy, the main characters, father and son, neither give solace nor get it. These characters are unlikeable, neglecting others and living mostly inside their own heads, and the pivotal scene is out of everyone’s control, making it seem contrived. And yet, I enjoyed the book. The author writes compellingly without trying too hard, the family dynamics seem plausible and at times even familiar, and both the urban and rural settings are beautifully rendered.
August 16, 2018
I've just finished this one & overall, I really liked it.
Having read some of the criticisms in other reviews here - under-developed characters / plot-lines, Mark as unlikable etc.. - I suspect a larger knowledge of the technicalities of constructing a story exists among readers here, than I myself possess (I simply love reading), so I base my rating of this debut on my general feeling for the novel and though I do admit some few moments of disappointment, these were minute and did not affect the greater experience.
I applaud Belinda on her bravery in staying true to the colloquialisms both local (Longford's 'ithin ?) & the lovely idiomatic English spoken in Ireland in general (I always wonder how much of this is an enigma or is simply lost on non-Irish readers, and therein lies my appreciation for its inclusion.)
What impressed me is the author's ability to build scenes with touchingly precise descriptions, some of my favourites being those of the baby, the window into whose development we are afforded sees her personality surfacing in delightfully familiar ways, in sometimes moving passages.
Details of farm life are knowledgeably and beautifully laid out, from the machinery to the herd, I loved the insights and obvious first-hand understanding of the subject.
The character of Tom is generously layered, given more depth than perhaps any other, and the novel benefits greatly from his presence.
For a father/son dynamic which rang very true for me, for the enjoyment given to me from both Aoife & Tom - thank you very much!
Having read some of the criticisms in other reviews here - under-developed characters / plot-lines, Mark as unlikable etc.. - I suspect a larger knowledge of the technicalities of constructing a story exists among readers here, than I myself possess (I simply love reading), so I base my rating of this debut on my general feeling for the novel and though I do admit some few moments of disappointment, these were minute and did not affect the greater experience.
I applaud Belinda on her bravery in staying true to the colloquialisms both local (Longford's 'ithin ?) & the lovely idiomatic English spoken in Ireland in general (I always wonder how much of this is an enigma or is simply lost on non-Irish readers, and therein lies my appreciation for its inclusion.)
What impressed me is the author's ability to build scenes with touchingly precise descriptions, some of my favourites being those of the baby, the window into whose development we are afforded sees her personality surfacing in delightfully familiar ways, in sometimes moving passages.
Details of farm life are knowledgeably and beautifully laid out, from the machinery to the herd, I loved the insights and obvious first-hand understanding of the subject.
The character of Tom is generously layered, given more depth than perhaps any other, and the novel benefits greatly from his presence.
For a father/son dynamic which rang very true for me, for the enjoyment given to me from both Aoife & Tom - thank you very much!
March 2, 2021
The writing is good, but I just didn’t enjoy the book. It’s overall uneventful and I found it boring, it was a bit like a background story with no main event, just day to day life with depressing additions.
September 26, 2011
This is a very easy book to read and i really enjoyed the first half of the book. I liked the characters of Tom and Mark, but didn't care much for Joanne. I found the wrong parts of the story were developed, i.e. Joanne's case, Mark's thesis as well as the story around Joanne's former lecturer. I found these didn't serve as much purpose as possibly intended, and i found myself wanting to skip through to the parts where something actually happens.
I found the ending weak and I was annoyed at times with the author's opinions, because they were clearly the author's opinions as opposed to the character's opinions.
I found the ending weak and I was annoyed at times with the author's opinions, because they were clearly the author's opinions as opposed to the character's opinions.
March 20, 2013
I grew up in a part of rural Ireland not far from where this book was set. It was the first time I had ever read a book where I felt like the characters were people I knew. This was a novelty for me and added to the enjoyment. The story centres on the relationship between a father and son. Although it was set in Ireland it could be anywhere and I think this is a story that will resonate with many people. There are times when you want to say to the son, 'go easy on your father' and then there are times when you want to say the same to the father. Belinda makes you love these characters even though they are deeply flawed. It's a beautiful story and very well written.
April 14, 2014
I really enjoyed this.I am 16 and wanted to try a book for the older as I enjoy them more. Once I got into it, I tried to read at every chance I got. McKeon is incredible at recognising small details of human expressions. Some might say it is slow-paced, but I felt the gradual build of the plot was done well. I loved the characters- even though there were quite a lot! The ending was a little sudden, there could have been at least another chapter added to conclude everything. Thus, this book receives 4 stars.
December 17, 2023
Slightly unlikable characters make the best of an unplanned pregnancy but as they grow together tragedy strikes. In the aftermath, and against the background of some gently revealed family history, the survivors come to understand the extent of their loss and the effects it has on their lives. Bridges are built and there is hope of solace to be found in the love for the next generation. Profound, a beautifully written debut. No decent PhD supervisor would ever do *that* though.
November 20, 2011
Didn't like it much. The review for the book says the father and son were brought together through tragedy. I didn't see that they came together that much. It is a "relationship" book. Not really my genre either, not one I would have picked, I read it for a book club. If you like relational books with no real plot...that's all I'll say....you might like this book.
July 14, 2013
This book was very interesting to me as I knew the places in it.unusual as its a small one street town in rural Ireland . The story was beautifully written and identifies strong emotions on many levels which an translate across all nations. I don't think you have to be Irish to get The city v country the generational/cultural context of this book .
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