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Final Payments
When Isabel Moore's father dies, she finds herself, at the age of thirty, suddenly freed from eleven years of uninterrupted care for a helpless man. With all the patterns of her life suddenly rendered meaningless, she turns to childhood friends for support, gets a job, and becomes involved with two very different men. But just as her future begins to emerge, her past throws up a daunting challenge.
A moving story of self-reinvention, Final Payments is a timeless exploration of the nature of friendship, desire, guilt, and love.
A moving story of self-reinvention, Final Payments is a timeless exploration of the nature of friendship, desire, guilt, and love.
297 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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753 people want to read
About the author
Mary Gordon
101 books158 followersMary Catherine Gordon is an American writer from Queens and Valley Stream, New York. She is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College. She is best known for her novels, memoirs and literary criticism. In 2008, she was named Official State Author of New York.
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March 17, 2016
Brilliantly captures the choked feelings of rage, humiliation and frustration experienced by so many American Catholics at the end of the turbulent Sixties.
Young Isabel was always the nuns' favorite, their special pet, raised to a lifetime of isolation and purity. With the encouragement of her eccentric, egotistical father, she threw herself into her religious duties, violently rejecting all the normal needs of childhood and adolescence.
Yet with adulthood comes defeat . . . crushing defeat. Isabel's father is rendered helpless by a massive stroke, just as the Church she worships suffers a similar crippling blow. For it is the Sixties, and nothing can ever be the same. The holy Church is now vulnerable to the rage of its ancient enemies, the Protestants and the Jews, the freethinkers and the Communists, the longhairs and the degenerates.
Dazed and confused, Isabel emerges into a world she cannot understand . . a world which seems to call forth all the most hateful and loathsome instincts and cravings buried deep within her. Her experiments with sex and freedom leave only a bitter taste, however, as she finds she feels nothing but loathing and disdain for the ignorant, dirty, hateful members of other ethnic and socio-economic groups. Isabel's rage is that of Irish America, forced to live cheek by jowl with enemies both old and new. Yet as a fragile woman, she lacks the physical strength to smash and crush and kill her enemies, or to burn them at the stake and purify their heresy.
So instead she whines.
A lot.
And that's how FINAL PAYMENTS was written.
Young Isabel was always the nuns' favorite, their special pet, raised to a lifetime of isolation and purity. With the encouragement of her eccentric, egotistical father, she threw herself into her religious duties, violently rejecting all the normal needs of childhood and adolescence.
Yet with adulthood comes defeat . . . crushing defeat. Isabel's father is rendered helpless by a massive stroke, just as the Church she worships suffers a similar crippling blow. For it is the Sixties, and nothing can ever be the same. The holy Church is now vulnerable to the rage of its ancient enemies, the Protestants and the Jews, the freethinkers and the Communists, the longhairs and the degenerates.
Dazed and confused, Isabel emerges into a world she cannot understand . . a world which seems to call forth all the most hateful and loathsome instincts and cravings buried deep within her. Her experiments with sex and freedom leave only a bitter taste, however, as she finds she feels nothing but loathing and disdain for the ignorant, dirty, hateful members of other ethnic and socio-economic groups. Isabel's rage is that of Irish America, forced to live cheek by jowl with enemies both old and new. Yet as a fragile woman, she lacks the physical strength to smash and crush and kill her enemies, or to burn them at the stake and purify their heresy.
So instead she whines.
A lot.
And that's how FINAL PAYMENTS was written.
January 19, 2013
Mary Gordon’s Final Payments is one of the few novels I’ve encountered that shock me just after reading what its plot is all about. It doesn’t just caught my attention –not that the plot is something capable of shocking- but also makes me nod in recognition in reasons I would just keep for myself.
Isabel Moore, the novel’s protagonist is suddenly launched into life after the death of her father whom she took care for eleven years. Being twenty-nine and is stripped of the idea what to do with her life now that she is alone at first thrilled her. It offers her something new, something exciting and took it as if accepting a new adventure. Indeed, having a new life to live is such an exciting experience. Like changing identity, leaving the past and being free from it. Deciding on things she knew herself we’re the best ideas and decisions. A journey with no hints and clues but with her two girl-friends, a priest and her father’s friends and an old lady -that for a time serves as a housemaid for Isabel and her father- to seek help and lean on to. But it is also a terrifying one for Isabel, having no experience at all on something for her to land on a decent job, experiencing things she should have experienced long before when she was still young and active. What decisions in life she has come through somehow manages her to assess herself and ask if she is living in the right way. But before she starts a new, Isabel decides to pay the final payments just before going through what life has left for her.
What I could mostly say about Mary Gordon’s prose is how she constructs the whole story. I didn't notice something special about her sentences but when you start to gather them in whole, constructing images in your mind, reading most of the pages is a real delight. Every voice of Ms. Gordon’s characters makes you care for them that I sometimes doubt the protagonist, even hate Isabel for doing something and its effects on people around her. It is as if you’re caught between two people you care for and doesn't have any idea on whose side to choose. The novel also makes me conscious of Isabel’s decision as to what will happen to her. And nearly at the end of the novel, one of Isabel’s virtues really caught me of guard for it is one of the most original and humane acts I've ever read, though I doubt it being perform in real life. As Isabel finds it hard too.
Published in 1978 to great acclaim, Final Payments capability to moved and inspire, its effect and power is still recognizable in my opinion as it is first received and almost 35 years has passed before I encounter the novel. I recommend this one with my warm heart.
Opening Sentence: My father’s funeral was full of priest.
Ending Sentence: There was a great deal I wanted to say.
Isabel Moore, the novel’s protagonist is suddenly launched into life after the death of her father whom she took care for eleven years. Being twenty-nine and is stripped of the idea what to do with her life now that she is alone at first thrilled her. It offers her something new, something exciting and took it as if accepting a new adventure. Indeed, having a new life to live is such an exciting experience. Like changing identity, leaving the past and being free from it. Deciding on things she knew herself we’re the best ideas and decisions. A journey with no hints and clues but with her two girl-friends, a priest and her father’s friends and an old lady -that for a time serves as a housemaid for Isabel and her father- to seek help and lean on to. But it is also a terrifying one for Isabel, having no experience at all on something for her to land on a decent job, experiencing things she should have experienced long before when she was still young and active. What decisions in life she has come through somehow manages her to assess herself and ask if she is living in the right way. But before she starts a new, Isabel decides to pay the final payments just before going through what life has left for her.
What I could mostly say about Mary Gordon’s prose is how she constructs the whole story. I didn't notice something special about her sentences but when you start to gather them in whole, constructing images in your mind, reading most of the pages is a real delight. Every voice of Ms. Gordon’s characters makes you care for them that I sometimes doubt the protagonist, even hate Isabel for doing something and its effects on people around her. It is as if you’re caught between two people you care for and doesn't have any idea on whose side to choose. The novel also makes me conscious of Isabel’s decision as to what will happen to her. And nearly at the end of the novel, one of Isabel’s virtues really caught me of guard for it is one of the most original and humane acts I've ever read, though I doubt it being perform in real life. As Isabel finds it hard too.
Published in 1978 to great acclaim, Final Payments capability to moved and inspire, its effect and power is still recognizable in my opinion as it is first received and almost 35 years has passed before I encounter the novel. I recommend this one with my warm heart.
Opening Sentence: My father’s funeral was full of priest.
Ending Sentence: There was a great deal I wanted to say.
January 2, 2011
It’s been over thirty years since I first read this book about a young woman’s efforts to come to terms with who she is after having spent 11 years of her life caring for her invalid father. I’ve forgotten what my earlier reaction to the book was and I wonder if it impressed me in the same way then as it has this time around. Perhaps what struck me most forcibly back then was the way Gordon so masterfully captured what it was like carrying around the kind of baggage that remained behind for those of us who were raised in staunchly observant Catholic families in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Back in my thirties I was still close enough to the kinds of scenarios Gordon paints as to make it difficult for me to see beyond them. While some of that baggage is still with me, over the years I’ve managed to get rid of a lot of it. Nevertheless, reading this book brought a lot of it back into focus because Mary Gordon is a masterful writer – her characters are finely drawn and she has a knack for showing us what’s going on inside them. This is a book about people who refuse to allow themselves to be happy, and what can happen to them when they cannot let go of their illusions about who they want other people to think they are. Guilt shows up frequently in this novel – in particular the problems we create when we confuse acting out of guilt with what it means to genuinely love someone. This is a profound book with a great deal of insight into how difficult it is to face our insecurities, weaknesses, and obsessions in order to make changes that are difficult to make.
October 7, 2023
Time to reread this little gem. I remember almost nothing about it, other than the look of the cover (I had the original hard back edition in 1978). Having just read Gordon's newest novel, "Love of My Youth," I am now in search of a copy of Final Payments so I can reread it. I am finally at a point in life where I am rereading some books from 30+ years ago, that I knew I had loved, but don't remember well. That is the only way I will reread a book, even if I loved it beyond words. I wait until the world has changed and the book is a new experience again, viewed through mature eyes. Sometimes I find I still love the book (as with "Marry Me, by John Updike) and sometimes I find it good, but would not rave to the degree I did in the 1970's or early 80's ("Nell," by Nancy Thayer).
The following was written several weeks after the above paragraph!
Finished one book this afternoon, read the 1st 60 pages of another. Great way to spend a quiet Sunday. I started to read the library's copy of Mary Gordon's "FINAL PAYMENTS," which was written in 1978. I hated that the pages were all dirty and bent. I was determined to find my original copy. I climbed a ladder to the top of my living room library shelves and there it was, in pristine condition, on a very top shelf. What joy! My mother's had written my name in it (my maiden name, since it was 1978 and I was only 24!) I thought I had read this, but there was NOTHING familiar about it and I always remember at least the feeling I got from a book, if not the plot itself. I think the clue is that my mother wrote my name...I must have loaned it to her and then never read it myself when she returned it.
So here I am, 34 years later, reading a book about a bygone era and reading it from the perspective of a mature woman who lived through the era about which the protagonist, Isabel Moore, speaks. I was not a Catholic school girl, as she was so I could not relate to the level of guilt and fear and control that Isabel felt after being raised by her very religious father and being close to her parish priest, but I could relate to being a young woman, coming of age in a time when men dared to attempt to fondle a woman on the job, promising career favors (disgusting)! Unlike Isabel, I was not insecure and would never put up with that kind of garbage and my male co-workers must have sensed this and looked elsewhere for their dalliances. Chauvinism abounded and would still be prevalent if woman of our generation had not forced a change.
Isabel spent 11 years caring for her brilliant but difficult father after a series of strokes that left him totally dependent on her for his care. Money was not an issue, so Isabel could have insisted, at age 19, that she had a right to go to college and live as her friends were living, dating, getting married. Instead, her Catholic guilt (she was referred to as a saint) kept her by her father's side, so much so, that for 11 years the only time she was away from her father's side was for a very quick walk in her neighborhood once in awhile. Her clothing, hair, understanding of the new ways of the 1970's, never changed with the times, so that when her father finally died and she was "free" she was out of style, naive and lost. She had had one boyfriend (with whom she was caught in bed by her father right before his massive stroke) but since that time, there had been no one. Suddenly Isabel comes alive and lusts for male company. She has 2 old friends from her Catholic school days who have been there for her all along. She is now able to visit them, dine out, meet their friends. She is seduced by the husband of one (a low life who offers her a job but then demands "payment" for this opportunity) and she soon after falls in love with a married man. She is happy, but that guilt is never far from the radar and she goes a bit mad.
The chapters about Isabel's work were interesting to me, as she interviewed old people being cared for by others. She determined for the county whether these elderly souls were content and if they were receiving adequate care.
Her love affair with the married man becomes quite complicated and ugly, which sets off a sort of madness that was heartbreaking to read.
The writing is painful, at times, which makes it beautiful, because we really feel what Isabel feels, even if we so disagree with the moves she makes. I would have remembered the tears I shed reading the last few pages. I would remembered how moved I was by this plodding, sad, heavy but beautifully done novel. Thus, I know I never read it, and am thrilled I decided to "reread it" only to discover it was a new gem after all.
The following was written several weeks after the above paragraph!
Finished one book this afternoon, read the 1st 60 pages of another. Great way to spend a quiet Sunday. I started to read the library's copy of Mary Gordon's "FINAL PAYMENTS," which was written in 1978. I hated that the pages were all dirty and bent. I was determined to find my original copy. I climbed a ladder to the top of my living room library shelves and there it was, in pristine condition, on a very top shelf. What joy! My mother's had written my name in it (my maiden name, since it was 1978 and I was only 24!) I thought I had read this, but there was NOTHING familiar about it and I always remember at least the feeling I got from a book, if not the plot itself. I think the clue is that my mother wrote my name...I must have loaned it to her and then never read it myself when she returned it.
So here I am, 34 years later, reading a book about a bygone era and reading it from the perspective of a mature woman who lived through the era about which the protagonist, Isabel Moore, speaks. I was not a Catholic school girl, as she was so I could not relate to the level of guilt and fear and control that Isabel felt after being raised by her very religious father and being close to her parish priest, but I could relate to being a young woman, coming of age in a time when men dared to attempt to fondle a woman on the job, promising career favors (disgusting)! Unlike Isabel, I was not insecure and would never put up with that kind of garbage and my male co-workers must have sensed this and looked elsewhere for their dalliances. Chauvinism abounded and would still be prevalent if woman of our generation had not forced a change.
Isabel spent 11 years caring for her brilliant but difficult father after a series of strokes that left him totally dependent on her for his care. Money was not an issue, so Isabel could have insisted, at age 19, that she had a right to go to college and live as her friends were living, dating, getting married. Instead, her Catholic guilt (she was referred to as a saint) kept her by her father's side, so much so, that for 11 years the only time she was away from her father's side was for a very quick walk in her neighborhood once in awhile. Her clothing, hair, understanding of the new ways of the 1970's, never changed with the times, so that when her father finally died and she was "free" she was out of style, naive and lost. She had had one boyfriend (with whom she was caught in bed by her father right before his massive stroke) but since that time, there had been no one. Suddenly Isabel comes alive and lusts for male company. She has 2 old friends from her Catholic school days who have been there for her all along. She is now able to visit them, dine out, meet their friends. She is seduced by the husband of one (a low life who offers her a job but then demands "payment" for this opportunity) and she soon after falls in love with a married man. She is happy, but that guilt is never far from the radar and she goes a bit mad.
The chapters about Isabel's work were interesting to me, as she interviewed old people being cared for by others. She determined for the county whether these elderly souls were content and if they were receiving adequate care.
Her love affair with the married man becomes quite complicated and ugly, which sets off a sort of madness that was heartbreaking to read.
The writing is painful, at times, which makes it beautiful, because we really feel what Isabel feels, even if we so disagree with the moves she makes. I would have remembered the tears I shed reading the last few pages. I would remembered how moved I was by this plodding, sad, heavy but beautifully done novel. Thus, I know I never read it, and am thrilled I decided to "reread it" only to discover it was a new gem after all.
December 11, 2018
Isabel, Irish Catholic, beautiful, and intelligent chooses to give eleven years of her life to her Catholic scholar father after a series of strokes. Her mother was killed when she was two. Her father worshiped her in a narcissistic and loving way. At nineteen, her father discovers Isabel in bed with her first love. His rage and ensuing strokes begin his debilitating declension. His death liberates her at thirty. But the Catholic talons won't let her go.
She explores freedom via selling the family home, staying with one or the other of her two life-time friends, is given her first job by the husband of one of them, who is a patriarchal, womanizing politician. Isabel sleeps with him twice, once chosen and once forced. She meets the local vet, also married and finds a 1978 version of true love. The jilted womanizer is furious. The vet's wife publicly humiliates Isabel. Thus begins Isabel's descent into decompensation and the prison guards of her upbringing. Her story continues in a compelling and surprising manner.
I very much enjoyed the novel. For it's historical portrayal of the 1970's woman. Yes, we have evolved! And continue to do so, thankfully. For it's portrayal of love relationships, some crippled and some hopeful. For the well done descent into madness. I shout in my mind, "No! Isabel! You are worth more!" For yet another Mary Gordon rich repast for my heart, mind and soul, I am grateful.
She explores freedom via selling the family home, staying with one or the other of her two life-time friends, is given her first job by the husband of one of them, who is a patriarchal, womanizing politician. Isabel sleeps with him twice, once chosen and once forced. She meets the local vet, also married and finds a 1978 version of true love. The jilted womanizer is furious. The vet's wife publicly humiliates Isabel. Thus begins Isabel's descent into decompensation and the prison guards of her upbringing. Her story continues in a compelling and surprising manner.
I very much enjoyed the novel. For it's historical portrayal of the 1970's woman. Yes, we have evolved! And continue to do so, thankfully. For it's portrayal of love relationships, some crippled and some hopeful. For the well done descent into madness. I shout in my mind, "No! Isabel! You are worth more!" For yet another Mary Gordon rich repast for my heart, mind and soul, I am grateful.
April 13, 2010
I read this book when it first came out in 1978, and I've carted it with me every time I've moved since then. Finally decided to reread it before purging it from my perpetually overcrowded bookshelves. I liked it the second time around, though it has aspects of a "period piece." It's the story of a Catholic woman who devotes herself to taking care of her invalid father for 11 years and after he dies has to figure out who she is and what kind of life she wants. Toward the end of the book, she descends into a mental pit of self-loathing and self-abnegating penitence for her "sin" of briefly putting herself first. This part was hard to read, both infuriating and boring. Naturally, it tapped into my always-just-below-the-surface rage at the Church for its sexism and glorification of self-sacrifice, especially for women.
January 2, 2016
I went back to see if I'd love this book as much as I did when I first read it just after graduating from college in 1986. What I loved then was the portrait of Catholicism. I also remember feeling like the main character is caught between duty to her father and her desire to break free and have her own life.
It's more complicated than that, and the main character is much more rebellious than I remembered. Her sexual liaisons are self-destructive more than liberating.
The main thing is that the book held up to my original memory of the quality of the writing and of drawing a world that I had no idea existed. I can see why it appealed to me at 23, and it appealed just as much-- for different reasons-- at 50.
It's a Catholic classic.
It's more complicated than that, and the main character is much more rebellious than I remembered. Her sexual liaisons are self-destructive more than liberating.
The main thing is that the book held up to my original memory of the quality of the writing and of drawing a world that I had no idea existed. I can see why it appealed to me at 23, and it appealed just as much-- for different reasons-- at 50.
It's a Catholic classic.
November 7, 2015
I feel like could sin for the next hundred years because my penance was reading this book. I'd like to have a sit-down with Mary Gordon to discuss her repetitive droning and the crucifixion of Isabel. Someone really hated catholic school?...
April 24, 2020
Isabel Moore has cared for her father for eleven years, now he has died.
At the age of thirty Isabel is finally free, her own person and able to do what she wants without having to worry about caring for an invalid.
But she is unsure, confused, never having had the kind of normal friendships and relationships her friends Eleanor and Liz have had she is just beginning to experiment and really live.
Along the way she makes mistakes, confusing, passion, sex, love and even things such as religion and morality.
She is finding her feet seemingly as a child in the body of a fully fledged adult as well as trying to cope with her deep seated tried and guilt of her father.
As penance she even tries to be a carer to someone whom she despises.
Can Isabel ever find happiness outside the confines of her father's narrow life and the walls of the home they shared together?
A really thought provoking novel of the care system, the people who care for their dependent sand how if affects their lives and future relationships with others.
A great read.
At the age of thirty Isabel is finally free, her own person and able to do what she wants without having to worry about caring for an invalid.
But she is unsure, confused, never having had the kind of normal friendships and relationships her friends Eleanor and Liz have had she is just beginning to experiment and really live.
Along the way she makes mistakes, confusing, passion, sex, love and even things such as religion and morality.
She is finding her feet seemingly as a child in the body of a fully fledged adult as well as trying to cope with her deep seated tried and guilt of her father.
As penance she even tries to be a carer to someone whom she despises.
Can Isabel ever find happiness outside the confines of her father's narrow life and the walls of the home they shared together?
A really thought provoking novel of the care system, the people who care for their dependent sand how if affects their lives and future relationships with others.
A great read.
August 25, 2022
Liz looked at me, her eyes flicking up and down in quick judgment.
“Who did your hair? Annette Funicello?
This comment, from the very last page of the book, sealed the deal for me—I shrieked with laughter and howled so loudly that my husband came running from three rooms away, wanting to know, what was so funny?!? My hysteria was partially from relief, because my reading experience of this novel up to this point had been extremely bumpy—not being raised Roman Catholic, I just didn’t get it. What’s with all these feelings of self-loathing, shameful guilt and desperate desire for penitence? A completely foreign terrain. What I could understand was Isabel’s delayed mourning responses after the death of her remaining parent, having undergone that same experience, but unlike poor Isabel, I never felt alone or broken in my grief. This book was a real learning experience.
“Who did your hair? Annette Funicello?
This comment, from the very last page of the book, sealed the deal for me—I shrieked with laughter and howled so loudly that my husband came running from three rooms away, wanting to know, what was so funny?!? My hysteria was partially from relief, because my reading experience of this novel up to this point had been extremely bumpy—not being raised Roman Catholic, I just didn’t get it. What’s with all these feelings of self-loathing, shameful guilt and desperate desire for penitence? A completely foreign terrain. What I could understand was Isabel’s delayed mourning responses after the death of her remaining parent, having undergone that same experience, but unlike poor Isabel, I never felt alone or broken in my grief. This book was a real learning experience.
January 13, 2011
What will a self-sacrificing daughter do when her life of caring for her invalid father ends abruptly with his death? In the midst of her loss and pain, she must now make decisions that will determine her future. Will she go ahead and cut her ties to the life she led? Will she find an independence she lacked all these years?
These are the questions before Isabel Moore upon her father's demise. She had loved him, looked up to him, and now she must create a new life without him.
Isabel's friends Liz and Eleanor begin to step forward to aid in this metamorphosis. But it's Liz's husband John who offers Isabel an opportunity for a job she seems well-suited for. A job assessing the caretakers of the infirm, who are doing so with a government stipend.
First she must sell her family home, but she does so; she moves into a small apartment in the suburban town where she will work.
Another side-effect of Isabel's new life includes the reawakening of her sexual being. Two men become a part of her new life, but in an oddly unexpected way, the men bring about a self-doubt that will ultimately result in Isabel's turning away from her new life and returning to a life of self-sacrifice. But will she find what she seeks? Or will she ultimately decide that self-sacrifice is not the answer after all.
I enjoyed this passage which describes the conflicts Isabel faced in her new life as she was struggling to decide if she should go forward with her lover Hugh, whose wife had unleashed her fury upon Isabel in a very public way:
"There had been a gradual darkening in the background of my life with Hugh since he had first suggested leaving his wife. But after she had publically accused me of theft I began to accept the identity of a thief. I lived as though I had been forced into a hideout. It was February; the light was bad, as I imagined the light to have been bad in wartime London. I was afraid to go out of the house. It took a new kind of courage for me to go about the business of my daily life. I drove around the supermarket several times before I went in, trying to calculate the possibility of meeting anyone who had been at the party. In the years that I lived as the daughter of my father I had always been greeted with reverence and delight by shopkeepers, by people carrying groceries. I was the good daughter. I took care of my father. I had nothing to fear. Faces were open to me, for mine, they believed, was the face of a saint. Now faces would be closed to me, and I myself would learn to close my face...As the daughter of my father I was above reproach....."
Exploring themes of good vs. bad; the pull of desire weighed against the unique place of self-sacrifice in one's life; and the joys of the flesh contrasted with the possible rewards of giving to others, especially the undeserving—these provocative issues, and characters acting out these issues, populate this very compelling novel. "Final Payments" is all about what can happen when one makes choices, and it's also about the consequences of those choices.
I could not help but award this wonderful book five stars. I would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Mary Gordon's work, as well as those who enjoy the exploration of these issues.
These are the questions before Isabel Moore upon her father's demise. She had loved him, looked up to him, and now she must create a new life without him.
Isabel's friends Liz and Eleanor begin to step forward to aid in this metamorphosis. But it's Liz's husband John who offers Isabel an opportunity for a job she seems well-suited for. A job assessing the caretakers of the infirm, who are doing so with a government stipend.
First she must sell her family home, but she does so; she moves into a small apartment in the suburban town where she will work.
Another side-effect of Isabel's new life includes the reawakening of her sexual being. Two men become a part of her new life, but in an oddly unexpected way, the men bring about a self-doubt that will ultimately result in Isabel's turning away from her new life and returning to a life of self-sacrifice. But will she find what she seeks? Or will she ultimately decide that self-sacrifice is not the answer after all.
I enjoyed this passage which describes the conflicts Isabel faced in her new life as she was struggling to decide if she should go forward with her lover Hugh, whose wife had unleashed her fury upon Isabel in a very public way:
"There had been a gradual darkening in the background of my life with Hugh since he had first suggested leaving his wife. But after she had publically accused me of theft I began to accept the identity of a thief. I lived as though I had been forced into a hideout. It was February; the light was bad, as I imagined the light to have been bad in wartime London. I was afraid to go out of the house. It took a new kind of courage for me to go about the business of my daily life. I drove around the supermarket several times before I went in, trying to calculate the possibility of meeting anyone who had been at the party. In the years that I lived as the daughter of my father I had always been greeted with reverence and delight by shopkeepers, by people carrying groceries. I was the good daughter. I took care of my father. I had nothing to fear. Faces were open to me, for mine, they believed, was the face of a saint. Now faces would be closed to me, and I myself would learn to close my face...As the daughter of my father I was above reproach....."
Exploring themes of good vs. bad; the pull of desire weighed against the unique place of self-sacrifice in one's life; and the joys of the flesh contrasted with the possible rewards of giving to others, especially the undeserving—these provocative issues, and characters acting out these issues, populate this very compelling novel. "Final Payments" is all about what can happen when one makes choices, and it's also about the consequences of those choices.
I could not help but award this wonderful book five stars. I would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Mary Gordon's work, as well as those who enjoy the exploration of these issues.
January 8, 2019
¨Final Payments" is Mary Gordon's first novel published in 1978. I bumped through the plot and characters in this story hoping to make some sense of it all to settle my emotional and cognitive incomprehension of the life choices of the characters, but I did not find any illumination about their motivations, or lack thereof until I read an interview given by the author in Commonweal shortly after the publication of ¨"Final Payments" https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/in...
I understand now after having read the author's comments about the novel that the story probably unsettled and even repelled me because my I find the protagonist, Isabel unrelatable. Isabel demonstrates the heavy footprint of Irish-Catholic guilt, self-sacrifice, and repressed ego in all her actions and relationships. My background, raised as an Italian-Catholic has different baggage: allowable self- expression a strong sense of ego, and emotional license that leads to rebellion and not compliance to normative expectations. The good Irish catholic girl, Isabel self-represses unconsciously to redeem herself from guilt she expresses through service to others in order to diminish her feelings of emptiness. In the end, Isabel realizes that there is no spiritual salvation in denying who she is by the service she gives to others, and so she décides to move towards personal self-fulfillment against the cultural norms she grew up with.
The novel introduced me to characters whose life-decisions were unacceptable to me. They led me on a journey through a world where self-destructive behaviors confounded my personal values. The final decision of the protagonist to seek her own happiness despite socio-cultural and religious expectations, signified personal growth for her. However, for me, her decision that like her life remained unrelatable to me. I admit, however, that although the story was unfamiliar territory, it was written in a seamlessly fluid style, and it provoked me to reflect about how the different cultures in which we are raised can influence us to make life choices or even avoid them in the name of spiritual salvation.
I understand now after having read the author's comments about the novel that the story probably unsettled and even repelled me because my I find the protagonist, Isabel unrelatable. Isabel demonstrates the heavy footprint of Irish-Catholic guilt, self-sacrifice, and repressed ego in all her actions and relationships. My background, raised as an Italian-Catholic has different baggage: allowable self- expression a strong sense of ego, and emotional license that leads to rebellion and not compliance to normative expectations. The good Irish catholic girl, Isabel self-represses unconsciously to redeem herself from guilt she expresses through service to others in order to diminish her feelings of emptiness. In the end, Isabel realizes that there is no spiritual salvation in denying who she is by the service she gives to others, and so she décides to move towards personal self-fulfillment against the cultural norms she grew up with.
The novel introduced me to characters whose life-decisions were unacceptable to me. They led me on a journey through a world where self-destructive behaviors confounded my personal values. The final decision of the protagonist to seek her own happiness despite socio-cultural and religious expectations, signified personal growth for her. However, for me, her decision that like her life remained unrelatable to me. I admit, however, that although the story was unfamiliar territory, it was written in a seamlessly fluid style, and it provoked me to reflect about how the different cultures in which we are raised can influence us to make life choices or even avoid them in the name of spiritual salvation.
August 30, 2022
I like the way sex is confusing as hell for these girls raised in strict Catholic homes. Isabel's friend, Eleanor, lives a chaste life because it's easier than the confusion of sex and loving, the muddle of it. And she was attracted to Isabel's father -- the autocrat -- the masterful, domineering voice of what is good and right, practiced from his armchair, debated with his (fellow) priests. Yes, I think Isabel's father is a priest in so many ways if not in name. Her other friend, Liz, is in love with horses and another woman -- so much easier than the muddle of marriage, of loving a womanizer. Her husband, John Ryan, is what today we would call a predator, an office harasser, someone who exploits to the fullest his position of power and influence. Isabel is an easy target for him, in need as she is of a job, which he provides. Thus is she beholden to him. She has sex with him but to me it was a rape scene. Because she is an innocent. Hungry for something she cannot name. An identity? A purpose? A sexual definition? She could not have a sexual definition living in her father's home throughout her twenties, surrounded by priests, their nun-like handmaid. When she finally emerges from the prolonged stagnation of her cocoon, she is a butterfly trying her wings, following her hormones.
The big surprise to me is the outcome of her involvement with Hugh, the married man. How many of us are fooled by these married men who seem true and even virtuous, righteous in their serial desire for another woman, who stay married because they are unable to de-commit. Isabel doesn't want to hurt anyone. Hugh doesn't want to hurt anyone. But everyone is hurt, always.
This story unravels in a very misguided, fallen-Catholic way. I am glad I read it. I hope I have learned from it. And I thank Mary Gordon for circumscribing the chaos of all these fallen angels.
The big surprise to me is the outcome of her involvement with Hugh, the married man. How many of us are fooled by these married men who seem true and even virtuous, righteous in their serial desire for another woman, who stay married because they are unable to de-commit. Isabel doesn't want to hurt anyone. Hugh doesn't want to hurt anyone. But everyone is hurt, always.
This story unravels in a very misguided, fallen-Catholic way. I am glad I read it. I hope I have learned from it. And I thank Mary Gordon for circumscribing the chaos of all these fallen angels.
October 24, 2023
So, when I started reading this, I thought to myself, "why don't I read more modernist literature (it was published in 1978, but it has a very mid-century sound)?" And then, two pages later, I was like, "Oh, yeah. That's why." Action-wise, it goes with a very minimal approach. Like a written account of watching a second hand tick around a clock. Isabelle's father dies, she sells the house and gets a job.
Aaaaaaaaaand, that's it.
But, don't worry, she makes plenty of terrible and super selfish decisions along the way.
It's not even the lack of action that bothers me. I like small brushstrokes. But Isabelle is so navel-gazing and unlikable, I couldn't care less what she does. Which is great, since she does nothing!
Everyone is just soooooo miserable: Isabelle, all her friends, the married men she sleeps with. They all just eat and drink and languish in this casual misery, and it just grates.
Isabelle is slightly woke, in that she takes notice of systemic racism and sexism, but, it never goes beyond noticing. I know this book was written in a different time, but I'm simply not in the mood to forgive Isabelle for complicity, especially as she seems to want approbation for the little she does.
Beyond that, there is an unnerving lack of charity for the old and infirm. Actually, a complete lack of charity for anyone that Isabelle herself doesn't find visually pleasing. It's so global to the story, without feeling relevant to the story, that it simply feels unexplainably cruel.
It feels really weird to give a talent like Mary Gordon a one-star review, buuuuuuuut, in summation, I might recommend skipping this one.
Aaaaaaaaaand, that's it.
But, don't worry, she makes plenty of terrible and super selfish decisions along the way.
It's not even the lack of action that bothers me. I like small brushstrokes. But Isabelle is so navel-gazing and unlikable, I couldn't care less what she does. Which is great, since she does nothing!
Everyone is just soooooo miserable: Isabelle, all her friends, the married men she sleeps with. They all just eat and drink and languish in this casual misery, and it just grates.
Isabelle is slightly woke, in that she takes notice of systemic racism and sexism, but, it never goes beyond noticing. I know this book was written in a different time, but I'm simply not in the mood to forgive Isabelle for complicity, especially as she seems to want approbation for the little she does.
Beyond that, there is an unnerving lack of charity for the old and infirm. Actually, a complete lack of charity for anyone that Isabelle herself doesn't find visually pleasing. It's so global to the story, without feeling relevant to the story, that it simply feels unexplainably cruel.
It feels really weird to give a talent like Mary Gordon a one-star review, buuuuuuuut, in summation, I might recommend skipping this one.
October 31, 2007
Ok khay, we can be sisters again .. you redeemed yourself, for now - this book had to be good if i was actually able to finish it during a work week (a rare feat these days, sadly) - very very readable, wonderfully written with those great turns of phrase that make you stop and re read. I liked the idea of someone giving up her life for an ailing parent and then suddenly not knowing who she is when the parent dies and having to reinvent herself etc - however, i knocked off a star because
1 - authentic dialogue is something i really value in a book, and hers just really sounded off to me - EVERYONE is so profound? everyone is on the same wavelength? and at times people would say things of real significance and there was no response! it was as though she was showing a conversation in a vaccuum half the time - it was very frustrating
2 - the characterization felt forced to me - either someone was a total charicature (womanizer, annoying older woman) or the people suited her purposes
3 - the conflicts ran deep but at times the emotions seemed so seventh grade and i couldnt tell if that was a strength of the book (wow, she really shows how we never fully grow out of our insecurities) or a weakness (grow up, mary, and take your protagonist with you)
but all in all a very good read and certainly an interesting tale. ok, i had some issues with the moral ramifications of this work but that aside, worthwhile.
1 - authentic dialogue is something i really value in a book, and hers just really sounded off to me - EVERYONE is so profound? everyone is on the same wavelength? and at times people would say things of real significance and there was no response! it was as though she was showing a conversation in a vaccuum half the time - it was very frustrating
2 - the characterization felt forced to me - either someone was a total charicature (womanizer, annoying older woman) or the people suited her purposes
3 - the conflicts ran deep but at times the emotions seemed so seventh grade and i couldnt tell if that was a strength of the book (wow, she really shows how we never fully grow out of our insecurities) or a weakness (grow up, mary, and take your protagonist with you)
but all in all a very good read and certainly an interesting tale. ok, i had some issues with the moral ramifications of this work but that aside, worthwhile.
April 19, 2016
I think it is difficult for a man to understand all the reasons a woman does something. This book has that as one of its man themes I believe. Other themes have to do with the relationship of a Roman Catholic to their priest, the relationships of friends who grew up in the Roman Catholic schools, the changes in life occurring for the principal character when her Father dies.
I enjoyed this book as a piece of writing. The characters have so many problems I cannot relate to the read was not easy, though. It is not an easy reading book. You must concentrate on what the author is trying to say. For that reason I cannot give it five stars.
This is a book anyone can read but for young children and tweens. There is some sexual content which takes it out of the realm of children's books or books for tweens.
I enjoyed this book as a piece of writing. The characters have so many problems I cannot relate to the read was not easy, though. It is not an easy reading book. You must concentrate on what the author is trying to say. For that reason I cannot give it five stars.
This is a book anyone can read but for young children and tweens. There is some sexual content which takes it out of the realm of children's books or books for tweens.
March 9, 2019
A new favorite book. As someone who grew up in church, I related strongly to the main character. She struggles between finding security but also constraint in her "disclosed identity", and freedom but also confusion and messiness as she pursues a "created identity". I will read this book over and over again in my life - I'm sure I will take different things away from it and see the character differently in each phase of my life. At my current life stage, I resonate with her desire to create her own identity, yet also experiencing pain and confusion as she is hurt by various people (especially men). When it all becomes too much, she defaults on what she knows of being a "good person" and all that religious guilt and shame comes back. I had so many changing opinions and reflections as I read this. I can't wait to read it again.
October 8, 2013
Isabel Moore, the main character of the book, tries to reenter adult life at 30 after caring for her invalid father for 11 years. While there were some small areas I could relate to (the special feeling of being really needed, the feeling that no one else can do the things you are doing), I had a very hard time relating to so many of her issues. A lot of Catholic angst, a lot of "if I do this, will this happen?' I really think the main character could have solved a lot of her problems by starting a blog...she just needs to get her feelings out there and move on. The book did hold my attention, even though I wanted, at times, to slap the girl on the head for doing some of the crazy things she did. I finished it...but it was a little weird.
September 4, 2014
This is the work that made Mary Gordon's name...don't know how I missed it but I was raised 3 little kids when it was published.
If you grew up in a Catholic household in the 50's and 60's, you read about familiar situations. I found this book very real and reflective.
I especially liked the character of Father Mulcahy...he had a drinking problem but he had a big heart and good theology.
Our heroine barely escaped her situation but she did and that's the uplifting message.
Highly recommended.
If you grew up in a Catholic household in the 50's and 60's, you read about familiar situations. I found this book very real and reflective.
I especially liked the character of Father Mulcahy...he had a drinking problem but he had a big heart and good theology.
Our heroine barely escaped her situation but she did and that's the uplifting message.
Highly recommended.
January 16, 2025
This book was published in 1978. I was in high school. Here is an example of how NOT PC life sometimes was back then- John is introducing the new hire to others in the office and says “this terrific-looking broad, not only does she have a body, she has a head”. I burst out laughing. I am sure the thought may still be there in a man’s mind now, but he certainly won’t say it out loud.
The book deals with a young woman who has spent 11 years as the only caretaker of her father who has had a series of strokes. When he dies she is 30 and hasn’t a clue what to do with her life. The story considers sacrifice, selfishness and desires. It was pretty good but it was for me more interesting to remind me of the culture in the 70’s.
The book deals with a young woman who has spent 11 years as the only caretaker of her father who has had a series of strokes. When he dies she is 30 and hasn’t a clue what to do with her life. The story considers sacrifice, selfishness and desires. It was pretty good but it was for me more interesting to remind me of the culture in the 70’s.
September 19, 2018
I so strongly wish I could rate this 3.5 stars. I didn't enjoy it enough for it to be a 4-star book, but it has quite enough merit to keep it being a 3. That's besides the point.
Isabel is, at times, an insufferable narrator. She is always an unreliable narrator. The book is annoying at times simply because of Her, but that does not stop it from being interesting as hell. It raises a lot of ethical questions [i AM reading this for an ethics in literature class, so naturally, that's what i've been seeing] so I certainly think the book has merit. But it's no masterpiece.
Isabel is, at times, an insufferable narrator. She is always an unreliable narrator. The book is annoying at times simply because of Her, but that does not stop it from being interesting as hell. It raises a lot of ethical questions [i AM reading this for an ethics in literature class, so naturally, that's what i've been seeing] so I certainly think the book has merit. But it's no masterpiece.
March 20, 2024
Quite dated and unambiguously American. Relatively good in the middle section, which is interspersed with the main character’s visits to old people being cared for in the community. But most of the characters were unredeemably awful. It has the foul trope of the woman in distress losing her looks, putting on too much weight (a particularly American punishment!) and having bad hair.
I suppose it was well written, but I shan’t be looking to read any more of Mary Gordon’s work.
In case it’s not clear: I didn’t like this book at all and it was strange that I felt compelled to finish it.
I suppose it was well written, but I shan’t be looking to read any more of Mary Gordon’s work.
In case it’s not clear: I didn’t like this book at all and it was strange that I felt compelled to finish it.
April 23, 2024
Catholic guilt and self sabotage round out this gorgeous novel by Mary Gordon. Perhaps it’s because it’s went to Catholic School—but I found so much to love here. For readers who enjoyed “I Know This Much is True” by Lamb, I recommend this one. It’s a slow paced, female driven adventure, and I think you would need to appreciate and regularly read that genre to appreciate the masterpiece it is? It’s has very mixed reviews here it would seem, but I simply devoured it. I love despondent, slightly neurotic female characters though…kind of my jam.
February 5, 2018
While I can appreciate the skill of Gordon's writing, I could not make myself care about any of the characters. Having been touched deeply by the death of my father, I should have been able to identify with the main character, but I found her to be whiny and fatalistic. Reading this book was like trudging through mud. Occasionally, I enjoyed the feeling of mud between my toes as I did when I was a child, but mostly I just felt disheartened by the heaviness of this book.
January 31, 2019
Read this book for my American Storytellers and the Theological Imagination class. What a relevant read for me. I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a woman and experience desire in a Christian setting. The idea of the female life as only good or worthy if it is inherently sacrificial has been so damaging in the lives of so many women I know. This book captured that tension between wanting to be "good" and just plain wanting beautifully.
August 3, 2021
Arguably the most depressing book I've ever read. It is full of Catholic guilt and shame. Isabel wears a hair shirt and flogs herself daily - metaphorically at least. As I read the other works from Mary Gordon they appear to be of the same ilk. No thanks. I have enough problems with depression without submitting myself to more like this one. While she writes beautifully, that is all that her work has going for her.
May 3, 2022
Final Payments by Mary Gordon is a spiteful, bitter, hateful, vindictive, mean spirited, vicious, and horrid book. But not Isabel Moore, the protagonist, but Mary Gordon, the author. It has been a long time since I have read a book that is this bad. Mary Gordon must have really hated life to write such a book. I cannot find a single redeeming factor within this book. I don’t believe in burning or banning books, but this one should be destroyed out of principle.
July 24, 2025
Pensé en lo que Liz me había dicho: "Podrías ayudar a la gente. Podrías hacer mucho bien." Eso me hacía pensar que la vida era un círculo interminable, agotador: los infortunados, con el auxilio de los afortunados, que a su vez serían un día infortunados, a menos que murieran jóvenes. Cuerpos que usaban sus propias fuerzas para asegurarse que otros cuerpos pudieran seguir adelante. Y nadie se preguntaba: "¿Seguir adelante hacia qué?"
October 1, 2023
What a great novel, I think I'm totally into Mary Gordon now. I first came across it here but I think anyone reading it for the sex scenes is going to be disappointed. Such a great depiction of friendship & the Catholic experience.
May 9, 2017
I read this way back, when I was young and my Mom had just died after many illnesses. The story of love, loss and caring for a parent resonated with me. In fact, I had gotten the book when it came out, but saved it to read after my Mom's inevitable death. It was all very sad, but very well written.
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