İçimde Büyüyen Dünya

by Mary Costello, Peren Demirel (Translator)

“Mary Costello, olağanüstü bir adanmışlıkla yazarak, kimsenin fark etmediği silik yığınların arasında unutulup gidecek bir kadına hayat veriyor.”

- J. M. Coetzee

İrlanda’da Yılın Kitabı Ödülü’ne layık görülen, Costa İlk Roman Ödülü ve Uluslararası Dublin Edebiyat Ödülü gibi prestijli ödüllere aday gösterilen güçlü bir roman.

1940’lı yıllarda İrlanda’nın batısında yaşayan Tess utangaç, içedönük bir çocuktur. Gelgelelim suskun dış görüntüsünün altında ateşten bir yürek yatmaktadır. Bu
ateş sonradan 1960’ların New York’unun keşmekeşinde kendi yuvasını kurmaya itecektir onu. Yukarı Manhattan’daki Akademi Sokağı’nda kırk seneyi aşkın bir
zaman ve dolu dolu bir ömür geçiren Tess acımasız bir aşk yaşayacak ve büyük bir felaketle yüzleşecektir. Ancak cesareti ve metaneti, bunun yanı sıra da “bilinmedik tehlikeli bir şeyin eşiğinde süzülürken” bile sahip olduğu çarpıcı içgörüsü hep baki kalacaktır.

Yarattığı atmosferle okurunu derinden sarsan roman, Amerika’nın en büyük şehrinin şatafatı ve hengâmesi içinde ait olabileceği bir şey, bir insan, sabit bir
sığınak arayan bir kadının izini sürüyor. İçimde Büyüyen Dünya ile Mary Costello, İrlanda edebiyatının en heyecan verici seslerinden biri olarak yerini alıyor.

Genres: Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, New York, Book Club

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Mary Costello lives in Dublin. Her collection of short stories, The China Factory, was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. Academy Street is her first novel.

Reviews

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend Rebecca stated in her review that this was the female version of "Stoner". She nailed it exactly.

If you read "Stoner" and are one of those people who didn't like it because it was about a loser and nothing really happened, then please don't pick up "Academy Street". You won't be able to read between the lines and get into the mind and heart of a remarkable woman living an ordinary life, handling disappointment, heartbreak and loneliness with extaordinary character, always being true to her inner core.

"I could fit my whole life on one page. I could write it all down on a single page. And I am astonished that it is over, and that I am here, at the end."

Tess Lohan was born in 1937 in Ireland, loses her mother at the age of 7, grows up, trains as a nurse, comes to America, gets pregnant, raises her son alone, and grows old. Pretty tame sounding to readers needing an action packed plot line. But full of heroics of the interior sort, when sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other day after day takes incredible courage. Life is hard, for those who don't know, or should I say, for those who don't know yet.....

"In the better part of herself, had she not glimpsed beauty? Had she not, at times, felt blessed? Had she not felt the surge and soar of love, the glint of grace, and, once, had not the planets collided, and had she not burned with passion?"

I loved this book for it's quiet, gentle telling of a life lived with grace and acceptance. As you can see from the above quotes, it is beautifully written as well.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.5) A near-perfect novella about an Irish woman’s early years and new life in New York City. As the reader, you don’t so much watch Tess as feel with her all the losses and disappointments of her simple life; I was continually reminded of Stoner by John Williams. (This is the book I wanted Colm Tóibín’s Nora Webster to be.) Costello gives something of the weight of a classical tragedy to Tess’s struggle: “The paucity of her life made her unspeakably sad...A pall grew, a feeling of ennui, at the thought of the daily mundane, the restraint, the stasis.”

And yet there is beauty and dignity to this small life. “Had she not, at times, felt blessed? Had she not felt the surge and soar of love, the glint of grace...had she not throbbed with passion?” Costello’s prose may seem plain, but, like Tess, it has hidden depths. If I have one quibble, it’s that the book needs a more evocative title, something that will give it the literary weight it deserves.

See my full review at The Bookbag.

[Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars.

“No one says much anymore. A silence came on the house the day of the funeral and it has stayed. Tess thinks that they would all like the silence to end now, but no one knows how to put an end to it.”

We meet Tess, age 7, on the day of her mother’s funeral. In this short novel, 145 pages, we follow her over the next 6 decades. Never once as the story unfolds does the story feel rushed. It is amazing how Costello captured her life over just 140 pages.

Tess is an introvert, a quiet soul who finds it difficult to connect with people. As she looks back on her life, she realizes how few people “got her” and accepted her as she was.

She meets an old man, her patient, who says to her, “ There is, in some of us, an essential loneliness….It is in you.” A kindred spirit who was so wise.

She has a life- a quiet life. She experiences love and heartbreak, fulfillment thanks to her nursing career and son and loss- so much loss. She also has one true friend through much of it.

She develops a passion for books. I loved the following line:

“ She became herself, her most true self, in those hours among books. I am made for this, she thought………It was not that she found in novels answers or consolations but a degree of fellow feeling that she had not encountered elsewhere, one that left her feeling less alone.”

A truly wonderful book that absolutely touched my heart.

Published: 2014

[Dem · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars.


Mary Costello's debut novel Academy Street is a short novel spanning four decades and tells the story of Tess who emigrates to America from the West of Ireland in the 1960s

The blub of this novel really had me excited about this book as it was described as............. "Joyous and heart-breaking, restrained but sweeping, this is a profoundly moving story that charts one woman's quest for belonging amid the dazzle and tumult of America's greatest city"

Unfortunately I found the book neither joyous or heart-breaking. I really found no emotion in the story and felt I was reading a diary of Tess's life over the years and I failed to get a sense of the person that Tess really was. I possibly connected better with the first half of the novel and liked the feel of 1940s Ireland. I wanted to be moved by Tess and her sad life but I just couldn't relate to this character. I finished the novel and felt no emotion or for the events on Academy street and think perhaps there was too much going on in this little novel.

However the prose in this novel is good and many of my friends have loved this story and the character of Tess. My opinion is in the minority on this book and because it didn't work for me may not be the case for other readers.

[Paltia · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an emotional read. A story of a woman beginning with her mother’s funeral as a little girl in Ireland and ending with her trip back there from her new home in New York. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this book had me in tears on nearly every page. I’d read for awhile, begin to cry, get up and wander outside and resume. As a little girl the loss of her mother is devastating. I don’t feel she ever recovers. It shapes her life. The losses continue as does the expected heartaches. “She remembered warm evenings that first summer, walking downtown with him, this golden, blue eyed brother, stopping to listen to the sounds of a saxophone drifting out a window. He could be anywhere now. He could be happy. He could be dead. He might have opted to drop from the grid and disappear. This was America. As she walked along unfamiliar streets she wondered if the self she had become, and the self Oliver had become, and the self Claire had been, would have been different if they’d had a mother who lived.” Tess, the questioning person has looked and tried to discover what tugged at her heartstrings and inspired her spirit. She does her best to attain some understanding through the profound feelings that life creates for her. There is respite when she reads. Through books she comes closer to the meaning of life. She’s always wishing to find someone with whom she could delve deeper, to experience shared emotions on a level she’s only dimly perceived. She wants to find love. Through the enchantment of myths and hymns she can almost find a fountain of knowledge so pure and fresh it cancels her pain. Yet, there is a silent strength inside her - a reservoir of acceptance. There is always something just out of reach, that which through her life she is only given a mere suggestion of, something which is otherworldly. In the end she concludes “ there was no Eden...just time and tasks made lighter by the memory of love, and days like all others when she would put one foot in front of the other and walk on, obedient to fate.” Phew, this is a tough book to lightly step away from.

[Lynx · Rating 2 out of 5]

From her childhood in Ireland to motherhood in New York City we span six decades with Tess as she experiences the loves and losses that come with life.

I really struggled with this one. I could feel no emotional connection to Tess, who through it all remained sad and her story predictable. While I enjoyed her childhood years I found the older Tess got the more frustrated and underwhelmed I became. Costello does have talent for prose, and I know I am in the minority here, but this just wasn't for me. Maybe with the right story Costello will get a better review from me.

2.5/5

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

2nd reading update
Even more devastating and moving the second time.

Original Review
What glorious writing!

I read Academy Street as slowly as I could, at first rationing only a chapter a day of its 145 pages to make it last as long as possible. I knew to do this from the first word.

Mary Costello instantly takes you inside her characters. You live this story from the heart of protagonist Tess Lohan. You hear the sounds she heard; you feel the sensations; you experience Ireland and then the transition to being a foreigner in the United States in the 1960s. There is never a false moment, an extra word, a misplaced comma.

There is also never a second that you don’t believe that Mary Costello knows as intimately as is possible the time and locales she writes about. And what’s mind-blowing to me is that the era (and eventually place—New York) she writes about is mine, and she is far too young to have lived any of this. That fact sent me searching for her age—not available in any biographical online material except for one reference listing her in her mid-forties in 2012. And there is one blog about her time in my hometown, NYC, working at the Center for Fiction, which at the time was housed in the old Mercantile Library on East 47th Street, but, sadly, is now in Brooklyn. The only personal clue to her era source is the book’s dedication to her mother and aunts. I don’t normally do this kind of sleuthing or even care, but I was so floored by the perfection of this writing and story, that I had to know.

And now I know: Mary Costello is a brilliant writer who takes her time, forces nothing, and is incapable of dishonesty.

Until now, for me, the only other book that hit these depths, or more accurately, these expansions (more about that in a second) is John Williams’s Stoner, which I’ve read four times so far. And the taut narrative and depth of feeling in both books feel identical—as if Costello and Williams had the same muse.

In Stoner there are two main solo epiphanous moments (there’s a third, but this involves a lover): when protagonist William Stoner is guided by his teacher, Archer Sloane, to realize his love of literature and his life’s joy as a teacher; and again his transcendence on his deathbed.

Academy Street does the impossible by seeding throughout the book these rare numinous luminous solo moments—of seeing beauty in the midst of the ordinary, of feeling oneness no matter what is going on. And this salting of the whole book with the epiphanous does not overseason it or in any way cause a problem for the dramatic build of a story about what most reviewers call a “quiet life” but which I would qualify as an aware life, brave enough to completely forego all unnecessary noise.

When the copy of this book that I ordered arrives (I’m reading a library edition), I will put it on my shelf with my two copies of Stoner, making it the second book that I will read repeatedly for the rest of my life.

She walked along Sherman Avenue, Broadway. She felt calmer. There was something about walking, steps unwinding out of the body, that brought comfort and clarity. Was there not something in her that secretly savored this state of longing? Waiting with constant hope and everything before her, all to play for? Was not the ache sweeter, in a way, more enticing, more seductive, than the sating? Like waiting for the afterlife, she thought, but never truly wanting it to arrive. Because then, what would be left? It would spell the death of hope in the everyday, like love born dead. (117)

In one paragraph she goes to the heart of the incarnated human condition.

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having completed women’s history month, I noticed that all but one of my books for April are written by men. At some point I will allow for balance, but, in the meantime, I selected a few short fiction pieces by women to balance out my month, and now, I have read both of them. Suffice it to say, I will probably start with female authors next month to try to recalibrate my ratio, which I try to keep as close to 50/50 as possible. I want to begin this review with an ode to what is still positive about Goodreads after all the changes that this site has undergone. I had never heard of Academy Street or its author Mary Costello until the book popped up on my feed one day last week. My reading friend Antoinette noted in her review that Academy Street is one person’s life condensed into 145 pages. Without knowing anything else about the characters or plot, I was intrigued by the premise. How many people can discuss their lives in a mere 145 pages? I could read a memoir a day, and few of them are short unless discussing a specific event over the course of a lifetime, not an entire lifespan. Needless to say, the concept of only focusing on key events in a life to compress it into a short novella caught my attention, regardless if I felt empathy toward the characters or not. Thanks to Antoinette, I added Academy Street to my reading list for this month.

Tess Lohan was born in a country village in Ireland in 1937. Academy Street encompasses sixty four years of her life. Mary Costello is from the generation of Lohan’s children and was only in her early fifties when this book published. Having crafted a character with little in common other than country of origin speaks to Costello’s depth as a writer. I am getting ahead of myself. Readers first meet Tess at age seven on the day of her mother’s funeral. It is during the waning days of World War II, but in rural Ireland, country folk are mainly concerned about their own well being. Tess is the youngest girl in her family, a six year gap between her and her baby brother Oliver. Being the youngest girl, Tess had been accustomed to being spoiled by her mother and then transferred her need for constant comfort to her sister Claire. The Lohan family dealt with grief in a myriad of ways. Tess’ father became cold and distant and lashed out as his children. The oldest sister Evelyn married as soon as she could, and Claire becomes the first in the family to leave for the United States. The story centers around Tess, and she chose not to talk until necessary. The family lived on a large estate called Easterfield, and death cast a shadow over the entire home. As soon as Tess came of age, Claire sent for her to join her in America, still known as rhe land of opportunity.

By the time Tess arrived in New York, she had completed nursing school and resigned to life as an introvert. Her closest friends were her books and this would remain so for the rest of her life. She measured love in profound relationships with people rather than true love, and her closest friendships endured for over half of a century. Over the course of her life, she could count on one hand the number of these friendships. Her life was one of sadness and rejection. Reviewers call Tess a female version of Stoner, which I haven’t read, and a female attempt at Tóibín’s Brooklyn. I did not find deep emotions in Brooklyn and found that story to be average at best. Tess exhibits a range of emotions and is profound in her speaking to readers in her role as a narrator. The only similarity I found was that both protagonists are Irish immigrants to New York, albeit in different generations. Without giving away much storyline, Tess finds herself pregnant as a single working woman and after much self reflection decides to keep the baby, who is all she has. She keeps her job as this is the 1960s and working women are becoming more common. She raises her child with help from her downstairs neighbor Willa and her family. Willa is one of those profound relationships that last for Tess’ entire life. She is that one friend that any adult could hope for in their lifetime, and this affinity toward one another is good enough for Tess; she does not need love. She has her son and Willa.

As a single mother, Tess contemplates if she did well by her son. He happens to be a math prodigy and pursues a career in finance. During the angst of his teenaged years, he also grew to hate his mother for withholding his father’s identity from him. He grew jealous of his neighbors who had two parents and went to Boy Scouts, birthday parties, Coney Island, and baseball games. He noted later on that the two of them never talked. That just wasn’t Tess’ way as an introvert, choosing to keep most of her feelings buried deep within her. At certain points, this novella read like a memoir, and because I enjoy knowing about people, I could relate to this part of Tess. One of the most profound scenes in the book came between Tess and an older patient of hers named Boris who also had no one else in the world. He noted that some people could write their entire life on one page, and she is one of those people. With her life full of sadness and few relationships, Tess’ life has been one of loss and regret. After fifty years in New York, all she has is Willa, her memories, and her life lived in books, of which she has more books to finish than would last the rest of her life. Although an introvert who has experienced more loss than most, Tess has reached within herself to persevere.

One never knows when they will encounter a profound book. The cover depicts a nurse walking to work on cobbled streets, a woman going about her daily business. From that rendering, one would never surmise that they are encountering a persona who has been dealt a low card in life and had to rely on others to lead her on her path in life. During the bulk of Tess’ life people did not discuss the difference between introverts and extroverts and coping mechanisms for different types of people. Society as a whole did not stress mental health until recently. Tess Lohan is one of those one in a million characters who managed to survive with just a small cadre of friends to lean on to guide her through life. If I did not see a need to balance my reading, I would have never encountered Tess Lohan. I feel that I could have joined her and Willa for tea and listened to their stories of a life lived as best as they could. Another Irish author notes that just because characters only exist on paper does not mean that they aren’t real. Tess Lohan is real for me. I feel her struggles and grew emotional with her successive losses in life- how much can one person take. I just wanted to give her a hug. Academy Street was Mary Costello’s first full length novel, and I know that I will be revisiting her work.

4.5 stars

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started listening to this audiobook on a whim, almost immediately after hearing its author, Mary Costello, interviewed on a radio literary program. Something about the book appealed to me. Or maybe it was just the author: I'm a sucker for Irish accents.

The length of the novella makes it an easy read. The simplicity of its subject matter, though, is deceptive. Costello traces the life of her protagonist, Tess Lohan, from her childhood in Ireland, through her adult life in New York City. While Tess leads an ordinary life with more than an ordinary amount of sadness, it's a complex life nonetheless.

I thought at times that Tess' life was so quiet and restrained that it couldn't support even such a short narrative. But something about Tess' resilience and her stoicism has stuck with me since I finished the book. Something about Costello's writing has also had an impact. It's simple and without artifice, but it nevertheless packs an emotional punch.

This isn't a novel for all readers and I'm by no means certain that its impact on me will last. However, I'll look out for more of Mary Costello's work: she's a writer worth reading.

[Quân Khuê · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mỏng và tuyệt hay, Phố Academy là chuyện đời một phu nữ Ireland nhập cư vào Mỹ từ khi bé thơ cho đến khi gần nhắm mắt xuôi tay. Chuyện không có gì ngoài cô đơn và mất mát. Lý do tác giả không kể tới cái chết của nhân vật chính ắt có lẽ là để tránh tả thêm một cái chết nữa.

Tầm này thì tôi rất thích những cuốn thế này: vừa hay, vừa nhanh hết :)

[thaodocsachchovui · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Phố Academy” bắt đầu bằng một cái chết và kết thúc cũng bằng một cái chết. Chỉ vẻn vẹn hơn 200 trang, nhưng cuốn sách đã gói trọn cuộc đời của một con người, những hạnh phúc, thăng trầm từ thuở ấu thơ đến khi già cỗi, từ khi còn được gọi là “bé” rồi “cô gái” và cuối cùng là đến “bà” của nhân vật chính Tess – một cô gái gốc Ireland nhập cư đến Mỹ để bươn trải, sinh tồn, tìm thấy tình yêu và tha thiết được yêu.

Ngôn từ và mọi thứ cuốn sách đem lại đều mang cái buồn man mác, cái cô đơn đến hoang hoải, như một thứ cảm xúc chủ đạo bao trùm trong từng câu chữ. Mình không biết phải viết gì và nên viết gì để có thể diễn tả chính xác thứ cảm xúc mà quyển sách đã đem lại cho mình. Bởi sự tinh tế được lồng trong những câu chuyện đời thường của Tess, không quá nhiều kịch tính, nhưng vẫn có những biến cố kiểu đời thường mà ta có thể bắt gặp ở bất kì cuộc đời một con người nào đó, thậm chí có thể tạo ra những thay đổi, gây ra những vết thương lòng ở một người. Mình cứ đọc và không biết điều gì sẽ xảy ra tiếp theo đối với Tess, mình đọc từ từ và chầm chậm, thả mình trôi theo từng dòng suy nghĩ đầy mâu thuẫn của Tess. Có những đoạn mình suýt bật khóc vì thương Tess, cảm thấy mọi việc mà Tess chịu đựng thế là quá đủ rồi. MÌnh muốn Tess hạnh phúc.

Mấy nay trời ngoài Bắc mưa nhiều, cuốn sách lại tựa như một thứ gì đó khiến lòng mình lắng lại, suy nghĩ nhiều hơn về sự cô độc. Nhiều khi cô độc không phải là xấu, cô độc cũng chẳng tệ đến mức tàn phá một con người, mà cô độc có thể khiến ta hiểu chính bản thân hơn, quan tâm đến cảm xúc của mình nhiều hơn.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up
A deceptively simple novella about a woman of no significance or importance: an ordinary life. Tess is born in rural Ireland in the 1940s in a typical Catholic household. The novel takes us through seventy years of life (in about twice the amount of pages). Tess loses her mother at a young age and this is a pivotal experience:
“The stairs sweep up and turn to the right and it is here on the turn, by the stained-glass window, that her uncle’s back comes into view. Light is streaming in. Her heart starts to beat fast. She sees the back of a neighbour, Tommy Burns, and her other uncle, struggling. And then she understands. At the exact moment she sees the coffin, she understands.”
This starts Tess’s sense of isolation and an existence on the edge of life for the most part. We see snapshots of a childhood and then Tess trains as a nurse. The narrative is deeply part of Tess’s mindset. The warp and weft of her life can be seen by the reader and will resonate with many:
“She goes to the cinema with a girl from Cork, but mostly avoids social gatherings and nights out. The shyness she feels among others, and the terrible need to fit in, cause her such anxiety that when the evening arrives the prospect of going among people renders her immobile, disabled, sometimes physically sick. Whenever possible, she opts for night duty, the low lights and the hush of the ward offering the closest thing to solitude available in a working life.”
Tess moves to New York following her sister Claire and continues her career. She has a very brief romance: a child is born and she is a single parent to a son, Theo. She finds a best friend, Willa and life seems set in particular patterns. Tess has internal restrictions on her life which make her quite passive:
“But never in her whole life had she had one iota of courage. She had sought, always, silent consent for everything she had done – as if she were without volition, as if a father or mother or God himself sat permanently on her right shoulder, holding sway over her thoughts and actions. And when consent was not gleaned, or was felt to be withheld, she resumed her position of quiet passivity.”
There is a great humanity about Tess. We see her longing for the touch of another person. At times just wanting to touch and hold a man, but not wanting to disrupt her isolation; also wanting to touch/hold a particular woman, but again not wanting to disrupt a friendship. Tess is tentative and this can be a frustration for the reader, but she is very likeable:
“Occasionally she thought about retiring, moving house, taking a trip back to Ireland, but she did none of these things. There was, in her nature, a certain passivity, an acquiescence that was ill-suited to change or transformation, as if she feared ruffling fate or rousing to anger some capricious creature that lay sleeping at the bottom of her soul.”
Loss, grief and death gradually take hold. One slight irritation for me was the use off 9/11 to kill off a significant character, it felt a bit clumsy. But on the whole I loved this: it’s understated, moves slowly and has great warmth.
“This was it. This was her life, the summation of her life, her dreams run out. She would not encounter love again. She would not lie down with a man or hold a child in her arms. She was at the end of her destiny.”

[Huy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Không hiểu sao mình luôn thích những cuốn sách viết về cuộc đời như vốn dĩ nó như thế: không quá nhiều kịch tính, không có biến cố lớn lao nào và sẽ tan biến vào đám đông.
Mary Costello có cách viết đặc biệt rung động và chạm vào trái tim mình, bởi vì dù luôn muốn đạt được thành tựu gì đó trong cuộc đời nhưng trong sâu thẳm mình biết nó cũng sẽ trôi qua mà không có gì xảy ra, như bao con người khác.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can such a melancholy book be called wonderful? The character of Tess is exquisitely drawn. She is a woman with few, almost no, friends, but her friendship with Willa, her neighbor shines. This is a book that can be read in a day, and I read it in an evening and a morning. I want to read more by Costello as she has such a deft hand at portraying the span of Tess's emotions over a lifetime it is hard to believe this is a first novel.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A meditation on inner life, beautifully rendered and so very sad. Academy Street covers familiar ground—the troubled rural Irish family of Edna O'Brien, Colm Tóibín's naive emigré, Colum McCann's New York—yet Mary Costello creates a character portrait that is fresh and lovely. She lightly moves across seven decades of a woman's life, delving into the few highs and many lows of Tess Lohan's life. This is a novel of melancholy and regret and deep longing. All admiration for the gorgeous writing and the depths of feeling Costello creates in her quiet, strong Tess.

[Ian Mond · Rating 1 out of 5]

What’s It About?

Spanning 6 decades, beginning with Ireland in the 1940s and ending with the tragedy of the Twin Towers, Mary Costello’s short novel details the life and times of Tess Lohan. The back cover blurb says, that during her fourty years living “with quiet intensity on Academy Street in upper Manhattan, Tess encounters ferocious love and calamitous loss.”

Should I read it?

No. No. No.

Even though it’s received rave reviews from critics and literary authors like J.M. Coetzee and Ron Rash, Mary Costello’s first novel is a dull and earnest slog. Tess is a miserable martyr of a character who has sexual relations once… gets pregnant… never sees the father again… brings up the child alone (with some help from the next door neighbour)… and never again finds intimacy or, for that matter, has sex. To cap it all off her 37-year-old son, Theo, dies in the Twin Towers on September 11.

I know there are people who gobble up this sort of misery-porn. I just found it tedious.

Representative Paragraph

The one and only moment of sexual intimacy.

"And then, woozy, half dreaming, she gasped at the first hot stab and cried out in pain. She pushed at his chest, tried to pull herself from under him. Frightened, he looked in her eyes, and rolled off. He stroked her cheek tenderly. Shh, I’m sorry. A look of sorrow came upon him. She began to crumble. A tear rolled from the corner of her eye. He kissed her eyelids, whispered something she did not hear.

They lay in each other’s arms She did not want to lose him. She pressed herself to him, felt herself yield again. He searched her face, kissed her. He began to move, slowly, gentle, his hands caressing her until she felt the swell and ache of her body, the longing to fuse, to be subsumed. She turned her head to the side, repositioned herself under his weight. He seemed to forget himself then, and her. She did not care. She closed her eyes against the pain, both shocking and stirring. She was offering herself to him, and to something larger. She felt herself topple and a point of light, of bright sensation, opened and spread, spacious within her, and pushed her perilously close to a precipice. She had the feeling that he might after all save her, save them both, but then he gasped and shuddered and collapsed on top of her."

Commentary

I really didn’t like this book.

First there’s the prose. With six decades to cover in 170 or so pages, the writing is dense, compressed, mostly telling and never much showing. The novel is also entirely devoid of humour. Everything is grim and faded and earnest, the sort of literary writing that strives for profundity but is mostly stodgy and dull.

On top of that Tess is a passive character. Other than choosing to travel to America, life seems to just happen to her. I think we’re meant to admire Tess’ inner strength or “quiet intensity” as she deals with the struggles of being a single mother in America during the 60s. But she’s so inert that I found it impossible to engage with her as a person, especially given the amount of tragedy she faces throughout her life.

But my complaint goes beyond Tess’ utter lack of aspiration or ambition. I quoted above her first and only sexual encounter with her one true love, David. Much later she wonders whether there would ever “come another night, another time, another man, to match that brief all-consuming union?” The answer (spoiler alert) is no. She not only loses her virginity to David but she’s never again intimate with another man. Rather this one moment of desire, described by Tess as going “awry”, results in the birth of her son Theo.

I understand that not every woman had the opportunity to empower themselves, to enjoy the burgeoning fruits of feminism and sexual freedom in the 1960s. But in neutering Tess, and in falling back on that awful cliché of the unmarried woman becoming pregnant the first time she makes love, I can’t help but feel that Costello is punishing her main character. It’s made worse when Theo, once he hits teenage years, distances himself from Tess, a state of affairs that remains constant throughout adulthood. The narrative doesn’t really provide a reason for this. There’s no evidence that, aside from being a bit cold, Tess is a bad mother. But Theo and by extension Costello, punishes Tess anyway. And to add salt to the wound, Theo is in the Twin Towers on September 11. It feels like a reworking of The Fallen Woman trope, but one that’s needlessly cruel and tasteless.

Even the one bright moment in Tess’ life, her relationship with her neighbour Willa, is framed in this context. They become very close and there is a moment where they touch and… “[Tess] had a sudden longing to reach out, move aside the fabric, touch a breast, lay her head there, her mouth, ease her terrible ache for human touch, human love.” I thought Costello was going to save the situation and allow Tess to enjoy and experience a genuine moment of love. But no. Prometheus must stay chained to his rock.

I didn’t like this book not just because it’s so dull and earnest but because Costello feels the need to constantly flagellate her character, to provide her with a life of tragedy and sadness and loneliness, to remove any chance she might have of feeling love and intimacy. Some will find this inspiring, a great example of the human condition. But really it’s just misery-porn masquerading as something profound and significant.

[Jessica J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book caught me completely and totally off-guard, and I think that was ultimately its greatest strength.

On the surface, it reminded me of a plethora of other “Irish immigrants coming to America” novels – see Colum McCann, Colm Toibin, or John Williams for just a start. At first, I was perfectly prepared to be underwhelmed because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of new ground to cover in that genre. And, to be honest, even though the writing here was often quite lovely, it took a long time for me to begin to care about our protagonist, Tess.

I don’t want to give too much away about Tess’s life, so I’ll leave it this: she came to the US in her early 20s, following her older sister’s lead. She had been raised by her father in a small Irish village after her mother died of tuberculosis. It was a very small, quiet life and that small, quietness continues as she establishes a nursing career in New York.

This is a very brief novella, covering sixty years of a life in just about 140 pages. That’s how small and quiet Tess’s life is – no extended social circle to speak of, and just a few significant events that could mark hers as a unique existence. Even real-life historical events were dropped into the narrative with such little weight – Kennedy’s assassination merited just a few sentences. I found myself marveling over the contrast between the sacrifice of Tess’s immigration and the life she lived as a result. What made her want to stay, to keep ticking away the years in a place so decidedly not her home when there seemed to be so little benefit?

And while I was busy thinking of this story as an ordinary tale of immigrant struggle, Mary Costello punched me in the gut with an emotional final straw – I hesitate to describe it as a twist, because it’s presented as just another ordinary event in a long string of ordinary events. I can’t imagine, though, that any reader will read this as just another ordinary event. It caught me off guard, if for no other reason, than I forgot how quickly Costello was propelling through time, and the result was me sitting in a puddle of tears in living room on a Friday night. This was ultimately powerful little tale about so much more than just the immigrant struggle.

[Bên Phía Nhà Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

sâu lắng buồn quá giời ơi, dịch giả hạp cuốn này hay sao dịch siêu mượt

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A smoothly flowing story of one life, watching a young Irish girl grow up, always shy, obedient, and increasingly alone. God knows where she got the wherewithal to emigrate alone to New York City to be with her sister and aunt. Her passive and reserved nature are so successfully drawn by the author that I never felt at the end, despite being witness to most of her life, like this was someone I knew. She remained always an invented character. It was a steady flow of A to B to C etc, with little diversion or embroidery, or indeed even any significant introspection beyond a couple of flashes of sexual yearning.
A pleasant book to pass away a couple of hours in the evening.

[Serbay GÜL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her ne kadar klasik bir İrlanda'dan, New York'a göç bunalımı gibi görünse de , bir yalnızlık kitabıdır İçimde Büyüyen Dünya ve bu yalnızlığı iliklerine kadar hissettiriyor. Çocukluğundan, bebeğini tek başına yetiştirmek zorunda kalan bir anne , bir yetişkin olana kadarki süreç boyunca tanıklık ediyoruz Tess'in yaşamına ve kitabın son bölümlerinde hepimizin tanıklık etmiş olduğu yüz yılımızın en büyük acı olaylarından birinin, adı bilinmeyen o binlerce kahramanlarından biri olduğunu öğreniyoruz Tess'in. Göç edebiyatının güzel örneklerinden. Coetze'nin de dediği gibi, unutulup gidecek bir kadına hayat veriyor Mary Costello.

[Chi – cuddle.thereader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cuốn này có thể nói là một cuốn tớ ưng ý vô cùng, em nó chính là một trong những cuốn điển hình cho kiểu sách yêu thích thứ hai của tớ, dịu dàng yên ả và buồn; bên cạnh kiểu hồi hộp trên từng trang viết. Ngay từ những trang đầu tiên của câu chuyện, tớ đã biết mình sẽ fall in love với em nó rồi. Dù em nó chỉ có hơn 200 trang thôi nhưng tớ vẫn đọc chậm lại, theo từng phần, để đắm chìm trong những câu chữ đẹp đẽ này.

Tớ thích cái màu buồn trầm lặng phủ lên cả câu chuyện, nó đem lại cảm giác yên ả dễ chịu giống cảm giác một cơn mưa chiều muộn đem tới. Giọng kể giản dị, cứ bình lặng kể câu chuyện về cả cuộc đời của một người phụ nữ đáng thương, khi cô luôn khao khát tình yêu, mong mỏi được gần gũi với những người thân yêu, nhưng cô lại không thể có được điều cô mong chờ. Đúng, câu chuyện về cuộc đời một người nào đó không phải là motif quá mới mẻ trong văn học, nhưng cuốn này mang một nét rất riêng và để lại ấn tượng cho tớ rất nhiều.

Tớ thích dòng đời chân thực hiện lên trên những trang viết cùng những khoảnh khắc thường nhật được tác giả tái hiện, như thể nó có thể là cuộc đời của bất kì một người phụ nữ nào và cuộc đời không nhiều màu sắc ấy quá dễ tan biến vào tháng ngày hối hả xô bồ thực tại. Những diễn biến tâm lý trăn trở lo âu, mặc cảm của con người, cả cái khát khao hạnh phúc và nỗi đau bị bỏ lại của nhân vật, được tác giả diễn tả vô cùng tinh tế, nhưng không tạo ra một bóng đen nặng nề ám ảnh câu chuyện, nên tớ không thấy mệt mỏi khi theo dõi mạch truyện. Có những đoạn tớ muốn trách nhân vật sao mà khờ dại, sao mà yếu đuối, nhưng rồi lại hiểu ra rằng tình cảm vốn là yếu điểm của cô, và vì cô đã và vẫn luôn khát khao được yêu thương.

Chung lại thì đây là một cuốn rất đáng thử, nếu anh em đang tìm một cuốn mỏng mà không nhạt nhoà, để đắm chìm vào trong thế giới của truyện vào một buổi hoàng hôn mưa gió bên tách trà ấm nha.

[Adrian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so close to being a five star read; my reservation was the disappointment with the destination of the storyline, which I can't spell out here without a spoiler.

Beautiful, accomplished writing that makes it easy to understand the flurry of interest from publishers. The closest comparison I can make is to D.H. Lawrence in the internalising of thoughts and emotions expressed as a response to the physical world. It really was like Sons and Lovers in many ways - which is no bad thing at all.

Other comparisons I would make:
Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, for a similarly striking depiction of a character-forming childhood.
John McGahern's Amongst Women, for its capturing of claustrophobic small-town, rural Ireland.
Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, for its portrayal of a very different New York City.

These are lofty comparisons, I know, but they bear up remarkably well. As I say, any reservations are my own personal ones and I'd back this to be a serious contender for the Man Booker Prize - or any other prize you might care to mention.

[Kaptan HUK · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Korku Doluydun Anne"
İlk sayfaların üçüncü tekil anlatımında yedi yaşındaki haliyle tanıştığımız İrlandalı Tess Lohan'nın gençliğinde göç ettiği New York’ta kitaplarla bastırdığı kırk yıllık yalnızlığının anlatısıdır bu roman. Doğuştan çekingen Tess için New York yalnızlığı bir kaderdir. İrlanda günlerinde evlerinin kapısını dilenmek için çalan çingene kadının ayaklarına dolanan çocuklardan biri minik Tess'le göz göze gelir ve dona kalır: Tess'de gelecekte başına gelecek felaketleri görmüştür. Mary Costello bu detayı vererek Tess'i zor günler bekliyor diye okuru ilk sayfalardan uyarır.       Romanın köşelerinden spoiler gereği behsetmeyeceğim.       İrlanda Edebiyatı'na karakterini veren yazım tarzlarından diyalog ve tasvir yerine Mary Costello ekonomik de yazdığı cümleleri New York temposunda durmaksızın çevrinen kamera gibi kullanmayı tercih etmiş.       Romanın ön, arka kapaklarında ciddi sorunları var. Ön kapak? Romanın asıl ismi Akademi Caddesi. Tess Akademi Caddesi'nde yaşıyor. Emekliliğinde başka bir eve taşınsa da sık sık bu caddeye geliyor, yürüyor, eski apartmanın civarında vakit geçiriyor. Arka kapağın durumu ise: İçerik öyle bir anlatılmış ki Tess New York'a gider gitmez evleniyor, dolu dolu yaşadığı kırk yıllık hayatın sonunda acılarla geçen bir aşka yakalanıyor, dahası başına bir felaket geliyor ama bütün bunları aşmasını biliyor. Hayır hayır hayır romandaki senaryo başka; nasıl peki? Yok yaa! Hayatta anlatmam. Şu kadarını yazmak işime geliyor: Tess'in oğlu Theo büyüdükçe aralarındaki iletişim kopuyor. Yıllar sonra Theo durumu annesine anlatıyor: "Güçlü bir annem olmasını isterdim. Sen hep korkuyordun anne. O zamanlar anlamıyordum. Çocuktum daha. Sen de pek konuşmuyordun..."

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Opening with the funeral of her mother, this book is shrouded in a lot of misery. In my opinion, the novella is haunted by this ghost and it determines so many of Tess’s actions.

I thought there was a lot of promise with this story, but I failed to connect with Tess’s character. Starting in Ireland, we witness Tess’s childhood and how she felt starved and isolated from her family. Moving to America heralds a new chapter, a new beginning, but I didn’t ever feel that her quality of life improved. Throughout, it was as if Tess remained on the outside, looking in, forever numb to experiencing true emotions. In my opinion, I don’t think Tess ever properly grieved for her mother, probably because she was so young at the time, and this impacted her for the rest of her life.

I would have appreciated some time references in the story and it was not until the closing chapters did I find I could stamp this to a significant year. This was quite frustrating, especially as the emphasis of this story is following Tess over several decades. Furthermore, I didn’t connect the significance of the book title until near the end: I wonder if I had missed something important earlier on that would have made sense.

However, I do feel there were plenty of opportunities for Costello to expand on the novel. Although this is a short story, I wanted to see more developments in the setting, especially as the book covers such a vast period of time. So much changes in Tess’s life but I didn’t get an understanding of this through her character and I wanted Costello to expand upon this. There were some snapshots, but this was never enough.

Despite this, Costello’s descriptions were very powerful and detailed. This was slightly daunting and I think influenced my impression of Tess’s character. I never got the sense that Tess was truly happy but I enjoyed reading the writer’s depictions, even if I was not fully enjoying the story.

This was an interesting read but failed to spark my imagination. I don’t think the suffocating grief helped my enjoyment and the misfortunes that came throughout the book never really shifted this interpretation.

With thanks to CanonGate books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Thảo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuốn sách này làm mình cảm thấy đau lòng, ngay trong ngày sinh nhật. Cũng có thể cái cảm thức về sự chuyển giao thời gian của tuổi mới, năm mới khiến việc chứng kiến những đời người trải qua trên trang sách càng trở nên xúc động hơn.

Để viết về đời người, sách thường dài để tạo cảm giác miên viễn, thương hải tang điền, đầy các chi tiết, tỉ như “Tất cả các dòng sông đều chảy” hay “Trăm năm cô đơn”. Nhưng “Phố Academy” lại mỏng, đủ để mình đọc xong trong hai giờ. Cuộc đời của một người, thực ra, cũng chẳng phải là dài lắm đâu. Tựa như đoạn trước nhân vật Tess còn là một cô bé, đoạn sau đã lớn lên rồi. Có thể bạn cũng vậy, chớp mắt quay lại đã thấy mình lớn. Rốt cuộc thì cái bản lề đổi thay ấy đã nằm ở đâu, ở đâu? 13, 15, 18 hay 20 tuổi?

Nếu bạn là phụ nữ, cuốn sách này cũng có thể khiến bạn đau lòng. Đây là chuyện đời của một phụ nữ, từ lúc bé thơ đến ngày già cỗi. Những cái chết kết nối từng trang sách. Một khi bạn còn sống, cuộc đời bạn chẳng phải sẽ kết nối bao cái chết của những người yêu thương hay sao? Và ở đây đủ đầy cả những niềm vui, mất mát, khát khao, ảo vọng, chân thực, sợ hãi, kiên cường. Phụ nữ thật phức tạp. Con người thật phức tạp.

[A. Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is full of stillness and silence and distance, and the distance is simply and carefully created by the protagonist being a third-person she. She does, she thinks, she wonders. She is always isolated and at a remove because of this simple device. She experiences a depth of feeling, of loss, of longing, of powerlessness. There are happy, glorious moments in her life, innocent moments and womanly moments. The sensory details grip and squeeze and force the emotional recognition of the reality presented on the page. Silence enters her life to stay when her mother dies, for a time literally and then implicitly. Once, she wonders if things would have been different if her mother had lived. We know they would have. She has a deep friendship, she has a beloved child, she finds communion in books, she has a career, faith. Her strangled longing becomes the reader's, and even on a second reading, the response is just as vivid. The sympathetic identification is potent. I started to cry three times yesterday. Academy Street will break your heart.

[Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, which I bought after it was named Irish Times novel of the year 2014.

Costello tells the story of Tess, from the time of her difficult childhood growing up in the west of Ireland in the 1940s, through to her emigration to New York and her decades of life living on Academy Street, from where the novel gets its name, and indeed beyond.

Costello's portrayal of Tess, who on the face of it lives a wholly unremarkable life, evoked the likes of John Williams' 'Stoner', or sections of Colum McCann's 'Let the Great World Spin' for me, and while the book is a short read, I didn't feel short changed-the author is able to pack some serious emotional punch through her prose.

Not quite up there with my favourite reads of the year, but not far off it-a book that I'd definitely recommend!

[Cynthia Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely beautiful, overwhelming book in only 145 pages. Stunning.

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t believe how well-paced this short novel was almost all the way through, given that the author fits almost the protagonist’s entire life into under 150 beautifully written pages. Tess Lohan is just seven years old when her mother dies, after which Costello follows her through her emigration to New York and her life there. She adeptly explores the impact of social and cultural changes as well as number of themes, including the impact of loss, especially when young, and introversion - with a tension between Tess feeling apart from the world around her and wishing to be more connected. A couple of notes rang off, around race (particularly when she ventures into the “wrong street” and “faces, all black, closed in on hers” as she is mugged ) and also the sudden intrusion of world events in the last third of the book. But overall, it was lovely.

“Being among people left her feeling lonely, even at times, endangered. She felt divided from others. Their talk, their dreams, seemed to her incidental, artificial, something that had to be got through en route to the real conversation, the heart of the matter. She found herself waiting for someone who shared her sensations.”