Almost There

by Nuala O'Faolain

The author of Are You Somebody? considers the changes taking place in her middle years, during which she made decisions that would significantly impact the future and reassessed her friendships and romances. 175,000 first printing.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Ireland, Biography, Irish Literature, Biography Memoir, Female Authors

288 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2003

About the author

Nuala O'Faolain was an Irish journalist, columnist and writer who attended a convent school in the north of Ireland, studied English at University College, Dublin, and medieval English literature at the University of Hull before earning a postgraduate degree in English from Oxford.

She returned to University College as a lecturer in the English department, and later was journalist, TV producer, book reviewer, teacher and author.

She became internationally well-known for her two volumes of memoir: Are You Somebody? & Almost There, a her her novel, My Dream of You, and a history with commentary, the Story of Chicago May. The first three were all featured on the New York Times Best Seller list. Her novel Best Love Rosie was published posthumously in 2008.

Reviews

[Theadra Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this cemented Ms. O'Faolain as my favorite author. So often I read feminist or woman's literature I feel unaffected or unable to touch it. But I am deeply impacted by her.

I have very little in commen with Ms. O'Faolain and can not pretend to understand her experience. We are seperated by generation, country, marital status, familial connection but I profoundly "get" her struggle with identity.

Read "Are you Somebody" and "My Dream of You" first. It will mean so much more to you.

[Jan Marquart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nuala O'Faolain is a memoir writer. Her book Almost There is a heartbreaking and heartwarming story about the soul of a writer. I use this book in all my writing workshops to teach the power of memoir. Nuala O'Faolain is philosophical and brutal in her honesty about her low points in life, moments we would all rather not remember. You'll love it.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've had this book for years. I randomly picked up O'Faolain's first memoir, Are You Somebody?, at a book sale and I liked it, although with reservations. So over the years, I've plucked both this second memoir and her novel out of book sale stacks.

This second memoir is rather... odd. The first half is basically about writing the first memoir, and about its reception and her reaction to it. A memoir about a memoir is not something I would have thought to find interesting, but since I flew through the first half of the book, it must have held my attention.

The book also spends a great deal of time on the author's relationships: her breakup with fellow Irish public figure Nell McCarthy, her affair with an older man named Joseph, and then finally her relationship with a lawyer named John. Personally, none of these relationship stories grabbed me in any way. The breakup was very sad and depressing; her affair with Joseph (which she continued even after finding out he was married) was very off-putting for me; and the parts about John and the massive jealousy over his relationship with his eight-year-old daughter made me irate more than anything. I kept thinking how painful O'Faolain's life must have been, if this is how she thinks about these things. The ghosts of her parents factored so strongly into her life, and did so much to shape who she became in her life. She struggled to overcome them and find happiness - and yet I know (from looking up her biography on Wikipedia) that within five years after this memoir was published, she died of cancer. It was very painful reading about her hopes for the future - she mentions how the average Irish woman of her age had about 15 years left - and knowing that even if she found happiness in her life, it would be short-lived.

And it's not just her own personal life that depressed me. Story after story after story about Ireland, her parents, and friends and family members just painted such a bleak picture of life in Ireland and the national milieu (especially during the years leading up to the Good Friday Agreement where the battle between Ireland and Northern Ireland was resulting in random killings of whatever side the killers didn't like) that it started to just turn me off of Ireland in general. I have read several books either about Ireland, or written by Irish authors, at this point and none of these books dispels this feeling at all. It's a beautiful place - I was there in 2001 - but the history is just so painful.

I don't tend to really enjoy books where the overarching feeling it evokes is "painful," so this wasn't very pleasant for me. O'Faolain writes smooth prose and the book moved along very quickly. I will probably still read her novel at some point. If you're interested in Ireland and Irish life, it's a good record of one woman's viewpoint.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A middle-aged, single, and childless Irish female columnist recalls her impoverished childhood, discusses writing and relationships (including sex!), and reflects on aging. I found her courageous look at her life to be heartwarming, funny, sad, and enlightening. Her insights are charming and honest. She is sincere both about her accomplishments and regrets.

Her story jumps around which bothered me until I realized that it reflects her personal confusion with her life, especially her lonely and unloved childhood. Alas, by the final chapters I recognized far too many of my own insecurities in her story and could understand and relate to the pain which drove her to and away from the love she so longed to share.

This is one of the few books that I recommend on audio as the author tells her story as no one else could.

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

2003.
Just saw that O'Faolain died in 2008 [at the age of 68]. She didn't foresee that while writing this third volume of memoir.

O'Faolain really tries to be honest with herself in this book, honest about herself and her fears and inner monsters. I have a lot of respect for her doing that. She is not at all sophisticated in psychoanalyzing herself but that makes the soul searching she does here all the more touching. And maybe it is that naivete that endears her to many readers [she writes movingly of the hundreds and thousands of letters she got from readers of her 2 earlier volumes of memoirs, claiming to have answered them all]. O'Faolain says it is just NOT DONE for Irish to be openly introspective, or to openly discuss any troubled marital or family relationships, and she seems to have been the first in her category [well-known female journalist] to do so.

Drink and troubled relationships are two themes that run through the whole book.
She refers to her mother quite a lot -- how she withdrew from family life into novel reading and drinking, to survive, it seems. O'Faolain cannot forgive her mother for this lack of parenting yet finds herself doing somewhat the same thing.

Part of this third memoir is spent living in New York, and she says some interesting things about what that meant to her. America as a place of immigration for the Irish for so long plays a role in that.

I am glad I read the book and can recommend it to anyone interested in Ireland today or in the recent past, but it's not on my list of must-reads.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first memoir by Nuala O'Faolain, "Are You Somebody?" took my breath away. I was so happy with her honesty about Ireland and how Irish families can devastate their members. This memoir is set in middle age. Nuala is still grappling with her sexuality and she is still being haunted by her mother and father and their inadequacies. Manhattan gives her joy and a place to start anew. However, 9.11 takes the comfort of that place away. This book is depressing. The author says that middle age can be just as troubling as adolescence. Yikes! Who needs that? The end of the book does not make her next step clear. Sadly, she passed away this past May, of cancer, at the age of 68. She did a very, very sad interview on RTE about basically giving up all hope and giving up on life. You want to reach out to her and lift her up. She was such a despairing person. Memoirs gave her an outlet but she was very lonely nonetheless. In this book she included some of the letters she had received from fans. They were so full of regrets and grievances. It makes you wonder how much baggage everyone is carrying around. Despite being a downer, I still find her writing intriguing and I want to read her fictional work, My Dream of You. From hints in this book, it seems that it will be reflective of her, although named fiction.

[HadiDee · Rating 2 out of 5]

O'Faolain came highly recommended. I read her novel 'My dream of you' and thought she wrote well but didn't care for the heroine nor the historical sub-plot. So I read 'Are you somebody' which was brutally honest but rambling and far too much a litany of 'this happened and this happened and then this happened' for my taste, but the last chapter was good, it didn't save the book but on the strength of it I decided to give 'Almost there' a chance.

In this book too, there is brutal, almost self-hating, honesty and considerable self-awareness but a complete inability to let any of this change her. It's a really bizarre mix of self-hatred and arrogance. Which might be interesting but for the fact that the time line is all screwed up, so there a lot on her lover Joseph and then they go their separate ways... and she moves to Belfast ... no, that happened while she's still with Joseph ... and then to the USA to write her novel ... no, that happened while she's still with Joseph too. I wasn't involved enough with her story for this rambling narrative to be absorbing, and I finally gave up somewhere around page 150.

Really at a loss at all the 4 and 5* reviews.

[Linden · Rating 3 out of 5]

i enjoy a meandering memoir, and this was a charming book and a quick read. i listened to the audio version, and the narration by the author was excellent. i think that it does target a somewhat specific audience (of which i am not a part), to whom it could be more meaningful: older women, particularly those who may find themselves living alone, and irish people, particularly irish women. o'faolain has some interesting meditations on friendship, being alone, family, pets, and politics, but there were some occasional mental ruts (the affair with joseph, the eight year old daughter, certain passages about aging) that, while i'm sure were helpful for her to ponder, i didn't feel the need to dwell on as much. i think that this and o'faolain's other books speak to validating the experience of average irish women in a way that (she makes it sound like) has not been done before, and i think that that it is very important people's lives to be represented in a public view that acknowledges their struggles. so for those women, i am glad this book was written, though it didn't speak to me in an especially profound way.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The honesty in which Ms. O'Faolain writes her memoirs and autobiographies is startling. She puts herself out there and lays blame at her own doorstep to the mess of her adult personal life. I appreciated the honesty about her relationship with one particular man, Joseph, and realizes her lack of understanding of who he was in reality was a certain level of denial she had kept willingly. She is also very honest about her relationship with her siblings and with her most recent companion and more particularly his child. Here is someone who allows us to learn from her life.

[Adrienne Su]

Bravely willing to say the unsayable, this captures many of the conflicts writers face, in addition to problems specific to women writers. For me the most resonant undercurrent is the chronic struggle between solitude and togetherness: the writer's need and desire to be alone in tension with the human need to be meaningfully connected with another. This struggle particularly clashes with expectations of women in both Ireland and the (mostly urban) United States. Having stumbled across this book by accident, I realize that I need to read 'Are You Somebody?' to fully appreciate it.

[LG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nuala O'Faolain is brilliant.
The book is uneven.
I have an interest in looking back at life and attempting an honest assessment.
Nuala delivers.
3 for the memoir
4 stars for her reflections

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you ever watch tv from Britian or Ireland, you might notice how ordinary people look--a little extra weight, sloping chins, teeth that are not a perfect white fence. I always find it refreshing to see actual people, because in US tv land even the quirky characters have a airbrushed quality--thinness, styled hair, skin that will make even the most self confident of persons sigh over their mottled being.

The author of this book is a female Irish writer. She is past middle age, single, plump, and drinks a “wee bit more than I should”. Her story is kind of cool, in that she kind of just managed life, then hooked into a columnist gig. Then, the columns became collected in a book and she wrote an introduction that turned into a standalone memoir, called “Are you Somebody”. I read it a few years ago. It was a big hit and, she made some coin and had lots of opportunities. In other words, her ship came in. She was, as I said, oldish, fattish, single.

This book tells the later chapters of her life. Now in her early sixties, she spends sometime in the U.S., continues to write.

I should like her more than I do, because I’m always wanting auto biographers to talk about sex and romance--And cool Nuala does. There's a lot of repressed sexuality that I recognize and do consider an “Irish-Catholic” trait. (In one story, she rebuffs a guy because she is on the rag and is too up tight and inarticulate to express the situation.) But that was in her younger days, and this book covers her recent history which begins at the end of a long affair with a woman named Nell, apparently another big fish in the small pond of Ireland (need to look her up).

This book avoids Nell as much as possible. N.F. takes up with Joseph, a sexy and reticent dude who calls her little girl and makes her quiver. But he is married, which she claims is a surprise. She does not apologize for being such a dope. But I can’t get fretted over that. In NYC, she has a funny on-line dating tale (and this is years ago!), where she posts an ad and NO ONE answers. She ends up w/ another cool dude and I think they ride off into the sunset. I think she also is dead from cancer, but an artist lives forever as we can see.


Summary-you might like it. RIP Nuala

[Elizabeth Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dublin journalist Nuala O'Faolain thought she was writing the preface to a collection of her Irish Times columns when she produced Are You Somebody?, a memoir that was a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. One of nine children of a famous philandering father and a cold, disappointed and ultimately alcoholic mother, O'Faolain's memoir detailed her growing up in 1940s and 1950s Ireland, enduring a strict but narrow education by abusive nuns and a country smothered by an rigid patriarchy directed by the church. O'Faolain absorbed the ethos of her nation -- women must marry, have children and serve -- but managed to avoid actually fulfilling those expectations. Instead she became a university professor, a broadcaster for the BBC and RTE, and finally the most popular opinion columnist in the land. Almost There picks up the story, beginning with the success of her memoir and all that followed -- aclaim, wealth, more books -- and what didn't -- finding a loving partner to share that success. She hasn't overcome her anger at her parents, and as she moves into middle age struggles to find the key to contentment as a single woman. Her answer is friendship, travel, art, animals and the natural world. For readers who enjoyed Are You Somebody?, this memoir will be a worthwhile read. For those who missed the first installment, I suggest starting there.

[Edith Andersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nuala writes with brutal honesty -- honesty that takes introspection and courage. She is a single woman, slept with many, with no children and a bottle and a cigarette to keep her company. She is a restless spirit, raised Catholic -- she died in 2008. She became known in the US, then at the age of near 60, with her book, "Are You Somebody." Something she struggled to answer for herself. I read an interview she did when she had little time left to live. She said all goodness had been taken out of life and some of what she thought mattered before, such as passion, mattered not. I suppose that in suffering it's hard for our best self to emerge and hang around. I'm glad that I listened to this book on cds - with her voice. In a small way, I got to know Nuala O'Faolain.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

How could a friend of mine call this a nothing book? Yes, it's slow paced. Yes she does complain about being childless and without a partner. But she soon learns that Love for friends, love of career , love of a pet like a child, and good memories can fulfill one just as well or better. She talks a lot about work and writing her memoir and other materials. This was helpful to a wanna be writer. She struggles with her mom's memory. In the end all her complaints maybe justified at times at others not so much. It is not a nothing book it is a lesson in living and beautiful as well.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was slow and almost seemed pointless. I may have enjoyed it more if I had read Are You Somebody?. Having recently visited Ireland and NYC, I enjoyed the references to her culture and specific locations so visited in both places. Nothing personal against her but I would not recommend this book to other people.

[Katy · Rating 2 out of 5]

well she lost me at her apologetic description of her throw away affair with the married man who she didn't really like that much. Last book was thoughtful and searching - in this one she just seemed needy and selfish.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The follow-up to her memoir - "Are You Somebody?" - I enjoyed this one even more...especially the bits about how the publication of her first book changed her life and the lives of many of her readers. To me, she's one of those authors that you'd just like to have spot of tea with someday.

[David]

The knowledge of O'Faolain's death a few years after this book appeared casts a considerable pall over so much of what is a brutally honest hope pursued and at least "photographed" if not physically captured over the final pages. The reader who has accepted the personality and voice of the memoirist wants her hopes to be fulfilled, but knows that, especially, her projected further 16 years of life (by actuarial records for Irish women of her age) were not to be. Readers of Are You Somebody? (and that will be, in all likelihood, a good 95% of the readers of this book) may also feel a little sad that so much of what seemed at the close of the earlier volume to be "coming together" was not at all permanent, or even durable, and that this second volume of memoirs does not detail a life made significantly 'easier' by the successes of the first book.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a memoir junkie so I enjoyed this. Will probably go back and read her first memoir.

[Tess Jones · Rating 1 out of 5]

May I never end up as bitter, self-indulgent, and petulant as this woman. Good grief. Why publish this? This should have been a private journal.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Of all things I would ask of life now, the thing I want most is to learn ordinary, daily love."
--Nuala O'Faolin

O'Faolin wrote this, her second memoir (the first and better known being Are You Somebody) at the age of 62, not knowing then that cancer would end her life in a mere six years instead of the 16 that she mentions possibly having owing to the average life expectancy for Irish women. The book focuses especially on her breakup with the journalist Nell McCafferty after over a decade as domestic partners, and on her coming into her own as a writer of fiction and dealing with that success. The book often lacks apparent focus, moving in a more or less chronological straight line but with frequent dalliances and sideways lurches into the past. She writes at length of her life divided between New York City and County Clare (hard to imagine more polar opposites), and of her romance with New York attorney John Low-Beer with whom she enjoyed a romantic relationship for the last six years of her life. Especially poignant is her account of her struggles with envy of John's relationship with his eight year-old daughter, her attempt to help her alcoholic brother, and her tortured relationship with the memory of her mother. The book is thoughtful, witty, and the reader can sense how difficult the process of honesty with self is, even more so than the process of self-disclosure. The writer's courage in letting the reader see her human, all-too-human self and her verbal skill in doing so are just two additional reasons I recommend this book.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this book after hearing the author on a NPR interview program in 2005. I was captivated by her voice (I am a sucker for English/Scottish/ Irish accents) and intrigued by the answers she gave to the host's questions. I wanted to understand what made her so prickly and defensive.

This is actually the second volume of her memoirs, the first being Are you somebody? I recommend reading it first.

To the story, it was very descriptive and I could see some of the places in my minds eye so easily. Nuala was such a strong willed and stubborn woman that I could relate to her very easily. While the circumstances of her life differed from my own, I could still understand her fears of not amounting to much and wondering what she was here for.

I saddens me to find out that Nuala passed away in May 2008 of lung cancer. I will miss hearing her strong voice.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed 'Are You Somebody' when I read it a few years ago, so I picked this book up when I saw it in a second-hand sale.

In this book Nuala's in her sixties, quite bitter, lonely, sad, and still trying to deal with a difficult upbringing, but I found it engaging. I enjoyed her comparisons of living in Ireland versus America, the Irish versus the American character, and her take on aging. Her relationships with her family and her lovers also interested me, especially one section where she is finding it impossible to accept her lover's little girl into her life in spite of being quite fond of her.

Sadly Nuala died a few years after this book was published.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart!
Introspections of a middle age Irish woman who had a childhood which still haunts her. This book is cutting,healing,hard, soft, discouraging and hopeful. Parts of it are poetic, as Ms O'Faolain expresses the gifts of words she has been given.
I am reminded, again, what a blessing goodly parents are and what a gift it is to have the structure of the gospel standards to guide us through this life. Without them, our brother and sisters go off on so many useless tangents.

[Sull · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent and moving book that was so worth reading--for insights into loneliness, depression, growing up dysfunctionally Irish, and the arrival of redeeming joys when one least expects them.

It was scary to me how some of her life events mirrored mine, but fascinating how she analysed and re-analysed and then deconstructed further every last nuance of her relationships with family, sig. others, etc. Good, good book. Makes me want to find her first memoir. (I'm sorry to learn she died recently (?), so no more books, no more growth. RIP, Nuala. . .)

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost stopped after the first chapter, but didn't, and am glad that I kept going. The author wrote this memoir at the age I am now, but we have very little, except being women and living in New York State (although for her it was temporary), in common. I haven't read her first memoir, but in this one she seems to move from a place of loneliness and deep anger to one where change, friendship, even love are possibilities. I felt hope for her at the end, but also great pity, that her relationship with her parents had caused her such grief and anger, even into her middle age.

[Donna D'Angelo Struck · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book dragged a bit in parts but the author's complete and total honesty helped maintain my interest. As an example, revealing her true feelings with regards to John's daughter was especially brave and forthright, and I applaud her for that. It's not easy expressing an unpopular opinion, and commenting on another's children is one of those touchy subjects. I am curious where Nuala's life went after the book.

Also, I listened to the audio read by the author in her melodic Irish brogue - this helped maintain my interest as well.

[Dawne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous writing lifts this memoir out of the doldrums that sometimes define a writer's life. See Ireland and the Irish through the eyes of an Irish Times columnist who finds herself suddenly famous after fifty. Her first memoir, originally puplished as a forward to her collected columns, gained unexpected and widespread popularity. This memoir explores the phenomenon of fame at a late age and how it affects love and writing. A truly beautiful book that tells several stories at once.

[VeganMedusa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd never heard of this author but just thought the book sounded interesting. It certainly was. It's not often I feel like I'm getting real honesty and soul-searching from an autobiography/memoir. That someone who's led such an interesting life still feels like a bit of a failure and still has immense unresolved issues from childhood, makes me feel a bit better. I especially liked hearing about her jealousy of John's daughter - to be that honest about such awful feelings took a lot of courage.