The Closet of Savage Mementos

by Nuala Ní Chonchúir

Lillis takes a summer job working at a lodge in a small lochside village in the Scottish Highlands. Leaving home is a way to escape her sorrow and despair following the death of her boyfriend and a testy relationship with her mother, Verity.

In Scotland she encounters love and excitement but when a series of unexpected events turn her new found life on its head, she is forced to make a life-changing decision, one that will stay with her for her whole life.

The Closet of Savage Mementos is drawn directly from the author's own experiences and explores heartbreak, loss, motherhood and adoption in a gripping narrative and the same expressive, emotive and exciting prose we have come to expect of Nuala Ní Chonchúir.

Reviews:

'Her finest novel yet.' - The Sunday Times

Ní Chonchúir manages to strike a delicate balance between passion and poetry…The Closet of Savage Mementos is a book that will appeal to, and deserves, a wide audience.’ -- Sunday Business Post

'It is raw, beautiful and compelling, a 'must read'.' - Sunday Independent

mpelling and deeply accomplished, The Closet of Savage Mementos is the product of a powerful literary talent. - Cork Evening Echo

About the Author:
Nuala Ní Chonchúir was born in Dublin in 1970; she lives in East Galway with her husband and three children. Her fourth short story collection Mother America was published by New Island in 2012; The Irish Times said of it: ‘Ní Chonchúir’s precisely made but deliciously sensual stories mark her as a carrier of Edna O’Brien’s flame.’ Her début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a gem’ by the Irish Examiner and ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times. A chapbook of flash fiction, Of Dublin and Other Fictions, is just out from Tower Press in the US. Nuala has won many writing awards including RTÉ radio’s Francis MacManus Award, the Cúirt New Writing Prize, the Jane Geske Award (USA), the inaugural Jonathan Swift Award, the Dublin Review of Books flash fiction prize and the Cecil Day Lewis Award. She was shortlisted for the European Prize for Literature and most recently won the Gladstone’s Library Flash Fiction Prize (UK).www.nualanichonchuir.com

Genres: Literary Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature, Fiction

190 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014

About the author

Also writes as Nuala O'Connor.

Ní Chonchúir studied at Trinity College Dublin, receiving a BA in Irish, and at Dublin City University, receiving a Masters in Translation Studies (Irish/English). She now lives in Galway.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as good the second time if not better! A book about mothers, motherhood, identity, loss, and home. Scotland comes out better in this novel than Ireland, or at least the coastal Highlands compared to Dublin. Beautiful writing without too much literary meandering. Loved it!

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lillis flees Dublin for the Scottish Highlands after the death of her childhood friend and would-be boyfriend Donal. In the Highlands, she works in a bistro in a small seaside town, and gets involved with a man. Lillis is haunted by memories of Donal, and her own childhood with an alcoholic mother. In the second part of the book, we find Lillis 20 years older, and still unsettled. This is a story of motherhood - good and bad mothers, and women's lives. Lillis never seems to be able to live her life as she wanders through life burdened by the past. I believe this is a book for women, more than it is a book for anyone, and specifically women who want to explore motherhood and what it means. The prose is often simple, and beautiful. It reminds us that Ireland and Scotland are very different places and makes them seem as far apart as perhaps Canada and Mexico. I plan to read more of Ni Chonchúir as I love her prose and her sensibility.

[Mary Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cast adrift by the sudden loss of her childhood friend Donal, Lillas travels, as previously planned, to Scotland, to a live- in job at an Inn. There she finds some distraction in a relationship with an older man.
Now, robbed of the time she would have had to decide whether she loved Donal, she struggles with her grief. Young, but also made mature before her time by experience, she has to consider whether she could improve on the poor nurturing skills of her own erratic artistic mother.
Every word spoken and every small gesture made by her characters is precious to this writer, and combine with a glorious descriptive backdrop and effortless storytelling to make this book a pleasure. Past and present finally come together, and the intense chapters about Nessa and Malachy, which could only have been written by a mother, roar out pleasure and pain and love and fear from the rooftops.

[Margaret Madden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lillis escapes the grey world of grief, and the ties that bind her in 1990s Dublin, and heads to a small village in Scotland where she takes a live-in post as a waitress in a Country Inn. Here she shakes off the memories and looks at life from a different perspective. She finds love and friendship with her older boss and her days are filled with good food, wine and afternoons of making love. However, when life throws her a couple of curve balls, a return to Dublin seems the only option. Will returning home make things better or worse? Will she forever run from her problems or learn to face them head on?

The novel is split into two sections; each twenty years apart. Reading the first part is like being a fly on the wall of a family with nothing in common. Verity, Lillis's mother, is a car-crash character. A failed mother and wife as well as an alcoholic, her children end up caring for her rather than the other way around. An artist, with the temperament to match, she is brilliantly written and her bitterness hops off the page. Robin, Lillis's brother is fearful of his future role in supervising his mother and wants to flee Dublin for the more tolerant world of San Francisco. Himself and Lillis both need their own space but resist complete estrangement.
The second section fast forwards to current times and the author returns to Dublin and Lillis's new life. The past is still interwoven and we get glimpses of how Lillis has ended up where she is and how she feels about it. An unexpected package brings the narrative to its final furlong and answers some questions for both Lillis, and the reader.

Based, in part, on the author's life, this is a story of love, loss and change. One minute Lillis is fiesty and determined, the next she is immature and needy. Her journey is not one we have not heard of before, but the way it is written makes you feel that it is. Nuala Ní Chonchúir writes with great flair, attention to detail and with melodic prose. The descriptive passages, especially the ones in Scotland, are divine. The interaction between Lillis and her difficult mother are intense and real. I am sure there are many daughters out there who will recognise the pain felt when a parent slices through your heart with a nasty comment or look. Reading the character of Struan, the older lover, the reader can see how a young girl could be attracted to such a man. He lavishes attention at times and treats her like the adult she has become. The backdrop of the Scottish landscape would most certainly help this feeling of awe that Lillis seems to have when around him.
On her return to Dublin, Lillis is in a dark place and the author uses her language skills to describe this mood:

" I was pulled tight between forgetting and remembering. Any sense of myself as a competent human being, with things to do and achieve, had left me. I was a rag doll, floppy and useless. I signed on the dole and stayed in Verity's; I slept during the day, for hours and hours, and drifted through the weeks, doing little. I unscrewed the mirror from the dressing table in my old bedroom and put it against the wall, so I wouldn't have to face myself. Everything seemed pointless, even absurd. Why should I shower every day? Why should I eat proper food? Why should I care about getting a job, or socialising, or about anything at all? I woke up each morning without myself, glum with the realisation that I had to get through another day."

This novel is written by a woman, with perfect observations on love, sex and family along with some of the expectations imposed on women. However, it should not be limited to a specific genre. It is part contemporary fiction, literary fiction and can also be placed in the bookshops under many guises; Irish Fiction, Female Author, Bookclub Selection. If I had to choose a table to place it on, in bookshops throughout the country, I would choose Modern Classic. It deserves the title for the beautiful prose and touching narrative, even if it is a new release. Well done Nuala Ní Chonchúir. You have written 190 pages of perfection!

[Teresa Mills-Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

When we were last in Dublin we discovered an independent book store just around the corner from our Inn and I selected four books to read by Irish authors, unknown to myself, and wasn't disappointed. Therefore, during our second visit back we went and this time there was a promotional table and "Staff Picks".

The Closet of Savage Mementos by Nuala Ni Chonchuir can best be summed up by Gerard Stembridge "Nuala Ni Chonchuir's characters and their relationships have about them that most precious and elusive quality: the ring of truth."

I appreciate stories strong on relationships and authors who use non-traditional words as descriptors which create clear images of what they mean to convey. "I fall asleep ... and dream of Donal ... he smiles and the dream skitters off in its own direction, barely taking me with it."

[Susan Lanigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this one. The main character, Lillis, flees Dublin and its memories of her dead friend to work for a summer in Scotland. However when she meets the much older Struan, things become more complicated than she expected. Subtly and wonderfully observed, the characters come to life, particularly the fascinating black hole of Lillis's alcoholic mother, Verity. Lillis goes through some difficult times, but the ending of the book carries a delicate, precious hope for the future which is heartening.

[Cleopatra Pullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The year is 1991 when Lillis leaves Dublin for Scotland and a new life, a new start away from the grief-stricken world she finds herself in. Working as a waitress she lives in staff accommodation, learns to deal with her colleagues, and falls in love. Life has come good, away from her mother and brother she forges her way into adulthood her own way.

In the second half of the book we meet Lillas twenty years later, back in Dublin and about to become a mother and wondering, as most women do, what type of mother she will make. Will she be like her own? Verity, her mother wasn’t terribly good at it. An artist she was often neglectful, sharp and impatient with her Lillis and her brother Robin… and she was an alcoholic. Sometimes a recovering alcoholic but even when sober Lillis prepares for the worst before each meeting. Going to Scotland gave Lillis some time away from the responsibility of caring too much, something that seems to have been her role ever since her father left some years before. Lillis has a relationship with her father, his new wife and their two young sons but he isn’t one who can cope with the emotions of a young girl who is looking for support, he loves her best when she is bright and sparkly. Robin is also keen to move out of his mother’s sphere, looking to escape the responsibility of caring for a mother who never put him first. The siblings have a bond born of unspoken hardship and up until Lillis departure have shared the responsibility of Verity.

It would be a mistake to say this is a quiet book, in some parts it is so raw I had to set it aside a while to gather myself in order to continue, but at the same time it is understated; I felt like a spectator to Lillis’s world and felt her joy at new-found love as authentic as the grief that undulates with varying degrees through the whole of the book. That isn’t to say this is a gloomy book though rather it is thoughtful, honest and powerful.

I read the second half of this book, heart in my mouth after the heart-rending close of the first and it was only on completing the entire novel that I found myself hopeful that the twenty years that we don’t hear about first-hand also included many moments of joy for this engaging young woman.

Nuala Ní Chonchúir has written a semi-autobiographical novel, one where bad things happen to good people as well as accurately reflecting the inevitable change in relationships over two decades. I liked Lillis from the beginning, she isn’t painted as a saint and if I were her mother I may well have had a few things to say about her relationships but she doesn’t have that guidance and so battles through the bad times with steely determination. In the early days she can seem much older than her mere twenty years and at others much younger as she worries about other’s opinions of her but this is realistic, we are all made up of different facets and often when an author strives to convince their readers that a person is authentic, this aspect is forgotten and we are presented with uniform characters – Nuala Ní Chonchúir created one that I certainly won’t forget in a hurry!

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

In two time periods twenty years apart Nuala Ni Chonchuir’s new novel ‘The Closet of Savage Mementos’ brings us the world of Lillis Yourell. In 1991 this young woman is shattered when her dearest friend and sometime lover Donal dies in an accident. Her grief is incredibly raw and I wept with her as she journeyed from Dublin to Scotland to work and to learn to live without Donal. We watch as she become involves with a local man who initially seems good for her.
Lillis’s relationship with her volatile mother Verity is examined throughout the novel – I’m being kind to Verity when I call her volatile - but the way Nuala Ni Chonchuir draws Verity we see that she too is simply another flawed human being, parenting the way she was parented – badly.
However, this relationship influences Lillis and when she becomes pregnant she gives her child up for adoption. She returns to Dublin and never tells her family about her son. She never forgets him, for he is part of her.
The second strand of the story is set in 2011. Lillis is married and having suffered one miscarriage finally gives birth to a little girl. Both her pregnancy and the birth of her daughter bring back a flood of memories; Lillis ends up both depressed and behaving erratically. The arrival of a parcel jolts Lillis from the haze in which she has been living. She journeys back to Scotland in the hope of uncovering and coming to terms with things buried in her heart for twenty years.
I cannot do this novel justice in a review, I don’t have a great enough command of language to do so. The narrative is a moving living thing - simply the story of life. The prose is sublime, descriptions of both character and landscape brilliant. Each sentence is carefully thought out and placed in perfect paragraphs. The whole thing is seamless. Nuala Ni Chonchuir is one of those writers we all adore – those who deliver both great story and great writing. Go buy.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saw that the Irish Times had chosen this title as their Book Club pick for December, so joined in the reading.

A new authorial voice to me and looking forward to the discussion.

Divided into two parts, book one takes place in 1991 when Lillis is almost 21 years old and in the throes of grief, after the death of a close childhood friend from a motorcycle accident early on New Year's Day. She had already made plans to leave Dublin and take up a waitressing job in Kinlochbrack, a fishing village in Scotland and it is there that she moves through the phases of her grief and falls quickly into a new relationship with her boss fifty one year old, Struan Torrance.

Things end badly for Lillis in Scotland and after a spell in Glasgow she returns to Dublin.

Book two begins twenty years later, Lillis is pregnant and about to give birth to a daughter, her supportive and loving husband at her side. The pregnancy, birth and raising of the child bring back memories and force her to address issues she had chosen to bury deep within her for the last twenty years. Much of it to do with being a mother, believing she had come from a long line of woman who were bad mothers.

It is a realistic novel with much to discuss and reflect on, both the decisions we make as individuals and those that we make due to the pressures of family and society.

Full review here at Word by Word.

[Mary Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous title for this book. I really enjoyed the language, relationships and the odd quirky event that happened. Family stories, half brothers, a gay brother and lasting friendships with descriptions of the Scottish landscape and urban Dublin make this a really good read.

[Claire Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very tender story, quiet and beautiful, and at times heart-breaking - especially in the second half. I also really loved the descriptions of the sea and landscape.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was something so compelling about this novel, and I can't really put my finger on it. Not much happens, but every time I picked it up I was so engrossed. Really enjoyed it.

[Dymphna Nugent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steeped in grief and a desperate urge to be away from all that is familiar, Lillis leaves Ireland for Scotland. Behind in Ireland remains her alcoholic mother, her brother and painful memories of Donal, her childhood friend and on-off lover. The sense of place is instant, as a reader we see every street in the small but friendly Kinlockbrach in the Scottish Highlands. We watch Lillis step out of her grief a little more each day and rediscover herself. However a heartbreaking betrayal sees Lillis making a decision, one which will influence her life forever. Ni Chonchúir's novel is powerful and real. She tackles loss on a terrifying real scale, she creates characters and problems that could be any of ours. We are forced to question whether nature makes us repeat the same mistakes as those before us. She is a master of the written word and The Closet of Savage Mementos highlights the truth that inside, we are capable of storing unbelievable quantities of stolen moments and half memories. Those memories are a part of us, no matter how far we run.

[Janet Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharp, sensual, witty, and quietly devastating, The Closet of Savage Mementos packs a wallop in just over two hundred pages, with characters who seemed so immediate I had the impression I'd met them rather than just read about them. Much of the novel concerns loss and grief, and although this is presented in vivid and achingly real moments, it also doesn't overwhelm the story - Lillis seems mainly concerned with trying to get on with her life, and the characters are more inclined to banter than indulge in dramatics. With not a word wasted, this is a novel well worth reading and rereading.

[Rubyryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it, as the themes and locations were so familiar to me. Ireland and Scotland are two places close to my heart and the landscapes play an important role in this novel. The Irish way of dealing with emotional trauma by suppressing emotions is dealt with great subtlety.

[Fidelma · Rating 5 out of 5]

fabulous..haunting..just beautiful..this is a book I will just have to keep and treasure

[Gavin Lavelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

cannot recommend this highly enough

[Kristie Saumure · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing of this book was stunning, but I just kept waiting for something to happen. I think I was in the mood for a more plot-driven book.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this novel

Captivating storyline with rich, descriptive language. Loved the depiction of Ireland and Scotland and development of characters. A touching story.