Nothing Is Black

by Deirdre Madden

A story of three women who, for different reasons, find themselves in a remote part of Donegal at a defining moment in their lives. The author won the Somerset Maugham Prize for "The Birds of the Innocent Wood", and her "Remembering Light and Stone" was nominated for the 1992 Booker Prize.

Genres: Literary Fiction, Ireland, Fiction, Female Authors

Hardcover

First published July 4, 1994

About the author

Deirdre Madden is from Toomebridge, County Antrim in Northern Ireland. She was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and at the University of East Anglia. In 1994 she was Writer-in-Residence at University College, Cork and in 1997 was Writer Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin. She has travelled widely in Europe and has spent extended periods of time in both France and Italy.

Reviews

[CanadianReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Claire is an artist, a painter, living in a stone house in a remote corner of Donegal. Her cousin Nuala’s husband—apparently a major figure from Claire’s Dublin art-school days—phones to ask Claire if Nuala could stay for a bit. He’s vague about the reasons, not revealing that the well-to-do Nuala, recently a mother and grieving the sudden loss of her own mum, has taken to stealing petty items from shops and restaurants—a spoon here, a sugar bowl there. Even though Nuala stays for the summer, the reader gets little insight (beyond the obvious loss of a parent and becoming a mother herself) into what makes Nuala tick. She is a remarkably flat, bland character. Honestly, though, none of the characters in this book is fleshed out satisfactorily. A third woman in the story, Anna, a retired Dutch interior designer, who spends her summers in her refurbished Donegal cottage befriends Nuala, only reluctantly revealing her grief at her estrangement from her daughter, who is around Claire and Nuala’s age.

I enjoyed this story—more a novella than a novel— well enough, even if it felt sketchy and rather contrived. The characters seemed to exist as mouthpieces for Madden’s ruminations and preoccupations rather than fictional people. As the novel draws to a conclusion, Claire reflects on the difficulty of knowing others, their essential mystery. That may be true. All the same, I feel the author failed to breathe much life into this cast. Definitely not Madden’s best work! The title, too, bears only a tangential relationship to the book’s content

[Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deirdre Madden has a superb sense of characters and the unsaid between people, I just wish she was a tiny bit more interested in telling stories ontop of her character analysis. Of course, there is some sort of story: A woman loses her mother shortly after giving birth, unravels a little and spends a summer visiting the main (?) character in her little house in the countryside. There are a few more characters whose perspective we get, before she leaves for her home in Dublin again. Exciting, this is not. It also feels like it could have been better if it was a bit longer and more worked out, less sketchy. But when it comes to style, this novel is great: it's wonderfully written, with a ease and ellegance, simple but not dumbed down. Still, I didn't love this like some of her others.

[Lexiatiya · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He used to lament being a sculptor, and insist that the visual arts were inferior to literature. In reply, she would accuse him of despising his own gifts. Images could never have the precision of language, that had been his main argument. That was what she disliked about words, she thought that they lacked subtlety. She refused to believe that by writing about apples you could ever say much about things that weren't apples, but when you looked at a Cezanne painting of a bowl of fruit, it expressed knowledge of other things - mortality, tenderness, beauty - in a way that was only possible without words. Markus claimed this was pure emotionalism"

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a marvellous muted story of three women who find themselves pitted against the unforgiving terrain of Donegal. Together through the power of connection they come to a kind of resolution

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Usually I love shorter novels which pack a punch, but this was really disappointing for me.

My main issue was that the characters were all quite tedious, and tended to have these heavily philosophical, deeply meaningful conversations with each other, which were completely contrived and unrealistic. It's just not how people talk to each other in reality.

I won't be picking up any more by Deirdre Madden in the future. I just don't think it's my sort of thing at all.

Writing: 2/5
Plot:2/5
Characters: 1/5
Ending: 2/5

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read this book a few times. I want now to shelve it near Claire Keegan, near Sally Rooney. Sisters.

[Mariele · Rating 2 out of 5]

A short, sketchy novel, and not the kind of story I normally read. I didn’t find any of the three women particularly interesting. Since I haven’t read any Deirdre Madden books before, I’m not sure in what way this is representative of her themes. It didn’t have a lot of the Ireland information in it that I am interested in. Claire’s memories of her German boyfriend, her travels in Italy, or the Dutch woman Anna all could have provided interesting aspects to compare countries and cultures, but there is very little of that in the story. Not a lot happens, even though there is a lot of potential. Didn’t the Nuala character just have a baby? But she flees her Dublin home to spend the summer with her cousin in Donegal? The child is barely ever mentioned.
This felt flimsy and fragmentary, but it had very nice landscape descriptions.

[Nancy Smyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing much happens in this story but it is elegantly and warmly written and you do get a sense of both the beauty and the isolation of the landscape and the characters. The book deals with death, mourning and the meaning of life. When I first read it years ago, I was at that stage in my life, it was comforting. I have read it a few times now... its nostalgic for me...I want to see how my reactions change over the years to the same subjects....(they don't and maybe that is why I find it comforting).

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really rather shite given her past output

[Helen Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and powerful! Insightful and wise... A wonderful book.. Deirdre Madden is truly brilliant!

[Lucy Booker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Attracted by the cover by Irene Von Treskow and intriguing title taken from Frida Kahlo's notes on colour, Nothing Is Black, tells the story of four different women's lives converging that are brought together through a connection with Donegal, a remote part of Ireland. Claire is an artist living there, working in her studio and living a solitary life until she is called upon to host her Cousin Nuala as a guest over the summer. Nuala travels there to escape her life, though it remains ambiguous what precisely is wrong with her situation back home, it becomes clear that she has suffered a kind of early mid life crisis and is searching for herself through self imposed exile from her normal life and seeks the company of people who live in the town her mother was from. Deirdre Madden writes with plain yet succinct language about the Irish landscape and it's changing and affecting weather and moods on the lives of people who have made it their home and on the strangeness and quietude experienced through solitude in a remote landscape. It is a short read, best read in a quite place to let it's subtleties shine through. There are a few odd typos in the paperback edition I read which someone had helpfully corrected by hand, published by Faber and Faber 1995.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Painting is a bit like life. There is no point in just sitting there thinking about it. You have to get the paint on to the canvas. You may not like what you end up with: it may fall short of what you had thought or hoped it would be - in fact, it usually does. But at least there´s something there, at least it´s real.
Setkání tří žen v irském Donegalu - malířka Clair, bohatá Nuela a Anna, starší Holanďanka. Clair je podle všech měřítek společnosti nepříliš úspěšná malířka - ale žije způsobem života, který se jí líbí. Nuala neví, co si počít s životem - má materiálně všechno, přesto ale cítí nespokojenost a nenaplněnost. Anna řeší vztah s odcizenou dcerou - skvěle napsaná psychologická studie o životních krizích.

[Aine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Went to Deirdre's book reading recently at the Dublin Literary Festival and vowed to read more of her beautiful work.
I raced through this highly descriptive book but was tempted to read slowly nonetheless so that i wouldn't miss Deirdre's gorgeous phrases and evocative scenes...

[Wendy Greenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book group book, so I can't say much other than this may a short book but is not short on content. The book examines (?) the lives of 3 women in rural Ireland, all outsiders or estranged in different ways. Derivitive of Frida Kahlo's words "nothing is black" on which, the book is based.

[Sue Whitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

western Ieland, decisions of an artist, shifting POV

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slight, but beautifully written. Thoughtful, profound, even though not a lot really happens. a window into three women's lives....some interesting commentary on the Catholic Church in Ireland.