What do you think?
Rate this book
NO ONE TELLS YOU: The Last Years of Edna O'Brien
Not yet published
Expected 10 Dec 26An iconic Irish writer faces old age’s brutal realities as her son tracks resilience and devastating loss.
As Ireland’s iconic Edna O’Brien confronts the brutal realities of old age – pain, confusion, hospitals, carers, the battle to keep writing – the world she built through language begins to contract. Her son Carlo tracks every flicker of resilience and every devastating loss, from the comic to the catastrophic, in a narrative that moves with the real rhythm of hope, setback, defiance, collapse, repeat.
At once a document of artistic obsession and a confrontation with mortality, No One Tells You asks what remains when work falters, independence vanishes and the child becomes the witness.
As Ireland’s iconic Edna O’Brien confronts the brutal realities of old age – pain, confusion, hospitals, carers, the battle to keep writing – the world she built through language begins to contract. Her son Carlo tracks every flicker of resilience and every devastating loss, from the comic to the catastrophic, in a narrative that moves with the real rhythm of hope, setback, defiance, collapse, repeat.
At once a document of artistic obsession and a confrontation with mortality, No One Tells You asks what remains when work falters, independence vanishes and the child becomes the witness.
224 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication December 10, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Review of advance copy
No One Tells You by Carlo Gébler gobsmacked me; I can’t get it out of my head. I expect it will live with me for years to come. Gébler is the elder of Irish writer Edna O'Brien's two sons, an accomplished author in his own right and a lifelong daily journal keeper. In this memoir—with quoted contemporaneous journal entries serving as his foundation—Gébler relates how his mother's health deteriorated over her last several years—from the early days of COVID until her death in July 2024—and how her stubborn determination to continue working sustained her. Early on, Gébler draws an analogy between opening a set of nested, ever-smaller Russian matryoshka dolls and O'Brien's visible diminishment as she inched toward death. That process is honestly and heartbreakingly illustrated with a year-by-year retelling of his communications and visits with his mother. Finally, Gébler relates his own reluctant recognition that we children too are mortal, are next in line at the cliff of extinction. For me, it all landed uncomfortably close to home. It is all too painfully true, and rarely shared. It is stunningly beautiful.
[While Goodreads says this book won't be published until late November 2026, as of late September 2026, it was widely available in Irish bookstores. That's when and where I purchased my copy.]
[While Goodreads says this book won't be published until late November 2026, as of late September 2026, it was widely available in Irish bookstores. That's when and where I purchased my copy.]
Review of advance copy received from Author
Great book about death.
Carlo was writing this book during the time he taught me in Trinity. In one of his classes he asked me to speak about the essay I wrote for his non-fiction class. As I spoke he asked me,
"Soph, how do you feel about death?"
Carlo was writing this book during the time he taught me in Trinity. In one of his classes he asked me to speak about the essay I wrote for his non-fiction class. As I spoke he asked me,
"Soph, how do you feel about death?"
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews