My review of This Is Happiness, a novel by Niall Williams

 

What a pleasure to read Niall Williams’ novel, This Is Happiness. The simple story is narrated as memoir by 78-year-old Noel (Noe) Crowe remembering a significant few of his late-teen years. They were spent living in tiny Faha parish, Ireland, with his grandparents, who at that time also housed a man named Christy, ostensibly in Faha as part of a team of workers who would bring electricity to the village. Trying to find his own purpose in life, 17-year-old Noe is fascinated by middle-aged Christy, especially after discovering Christy was really in Faha to right long-ago wrongs.

 

Even as a teen, Noe is sensitive and insightful, and by the time he sets to writing This Is Happiness about those years in Faha, his wisdom is finely honed. He looks back on his naïve self, his grandparents, Christy, and Faha’s people with tenderness and a touch of humor. Because Niall Williams’ writing is lyrical, I felt I was seeing Noe’s pains, quandaries, and discoveries as art. And a takeaway—not that Williams intended a lesson—is that even my life’s difficulties are beautiful when seen through a lens of kindness and wonder.

 

This book is absolutely lovely. I recommend it to anyone who appreciates a turn of phrase or human interest stories or life in Ireland or quirky childhood memories—or “generosity of spirit” (Noe’s observation of Christy). I leave you with a few sample quotes from This Is Happiness by Niall Williams.

 

“Sometime maybe you’ve had the sense that something has arrived in your life, and what it is you can’t tell, but it’s as though a gate you haven’t checked in a while must have blown open, and without even going to look you know it has. You’ve no proof, nothing you can point to, but you know: something has blown open.” [page 80]

 

“I couldn’t speak to beauty then, but I could to dignity and bearing and deep quietude in her. Sorrow, I thought …” [page 133]

 

“The two men were Bat from back the road who came in, God bless all, with cap low and eyes down, and Mossie O Keefe who was the Job of Faha, a man so hexed, not only dogged but whaled by bad fortune, that eventually, by a Fahaean genius for latitude in language, his initials became the thing people thought when things were not OK. You hit your thumb with a hammer, you went over on your ankle, you thought of O Keefe and said, ‘OK!’” [pages 239 and 240]

 

“As I’ve said, I am keenly aware I am dealing in antiquities. When you are born in one century and find yourself walking around in another there’s a certain infirmity to your footing. May we all be so lucky to live long enough to see our time turn to fable.” [page 55]

Review of Elsewhere

In Elsewhere, Richard Russo recounts a lifetime of episodes showcasing his mother’s fears. By the end of her life, a sky-high stack of such episodes teetered perilously in life’s breezes. That the tremulous tower never toppled is due to decades of her devoted son’s solicitude.  A life story such as Jean Russo’s could have become tiresome if told by a less masterful storyteller than her son. Though Jean’s myriad anxieties permeate the family stories of origins and travels and troubles, Richard tells the stories interestingly, mixing vivid memories with insightful observations about character and relationships.

Besides his mother’s eccentricities, another thread throughout the stories is her delusions that any place else would be better than where she was. Hence, the book’s title, Elsewhere. The book also looks at the legacy of the leather-tanning industry in Russo’s home town, Gloversville, New York.

Despite the stressful subject, I was always eager to pick up the book again for the next stories. And I hope Richard Russo writes a sequel, because I think Elsewhere leaves unanswered questions. He begins asking questions such as, “How could I have failed to see in myself the very traits I’d so confidently assigned to her?” [p. 161] But he doesn’t satisfactorily answer them. And he probes psychological underpinnings of his mother’s anxieties and suspects his own behaviors were enabling. But as his hindsight lengthens, an author as observant and sensitive as Russo will no doubt have more self-reflections to share. And I’d buy that Who am I? book, too. I might even like that better than this book, which is more of a Who was my mother? memoir.

“Antidote to Invisibility”

Moved by grief over his mother’s decline into Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and sorrow over society’s tendency to make patients’ diagnoses their new identities,  Dwayne Clark set out to keep his mother Colleen’s lifetime achievements and identity alive. The result is a memoir-tribute, My Mother, My Son. With remarkable candor, Clark chooses stories to aptly illustrate his mother’s feisty personality, character, and values, and her contributions to his development. Woven throughout these stories is their fierce mutual devotion.

Each story (chapter) is dated. Chapters from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s recall Colleen’s early influences. Anecdotes from 1960s and 1970s illustrate Dwayne’s family upbringing. From about 1999 through 2010, stories chronicle Colleen’s decline and the family’s decisions regarding her care. Chapters do not proceed chronologically; rather, they bounce from present to past, usually for a logical purpose. Generally, zigzagging flashbacks disorient me, and a few times while reading this book, I had that feeling. Most of the time, however, I could see why certain stories were placed where they were. For example, when Dwayne senses Colleen’s disorientation and loneliness upon finding herself in a nursing facility, he wonders if perhaps she now feels how she had felt as a young war bride making a long journey from her childhood home in India to her new home in Washington state, so he tells the sea-voyage story at that point.

I wanted to read this book because of the holding on–letting go tug of war in my own heart over my father’s decline into Alzheimer’s. Dwayne Clark articulately wrote out emotions I’d only been able to weep out. Here is one example: “It was as if I had come down with a spiritual and emotional flu, letting all the anger, fear, worry, and loss fully infect my soul.” Reading this book gave me a sense that I’m not alone. Not only did his struggle touch my heart, but it also was lively, interesting reading. Although I could relate to his not wanting to lose his mom in this tragic way, I could not relate to much of his family background. Still, his stories were fun to read. And I really, really wanted to get to know his mom. I’m not even sure I would have liked his mom, had I known her in real life. But I loved her fierce devotion to him, her support of him, her encouragement of him. And as the book points out, her consistent, confidence-building words came full-circle when he grew up to design the very memory-care communities that would embrace his own mother. One of the most encouraging messages of this book, for me anyway, was that our parents live on in us. I don’t want to lose my parents; they carry their own torches more brilliantly than I’ll be able to. Still, I am who I am because of who they are. Despite the heart-breaking subject, this book maintains a positive outlook.

As memoir, My Mother, My Son is universally engaging, especially to those of us in the midst of elder care, but also to a society tempted to diminish the impact of the elderly and infirm. Colleen Clark was not her diseases. Like all dear people afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease, she was a vibrant person who led a full life making a difference in others’ lives. She may forget her stories, but the people she influenced dare not reduce them to invisibility. In this moving tribute, My Mother, My Son, Dwayne Clark succeeds in providing an “antidote to invisibility.”

Because Dwayne Clark is in the business of providing residential care to mature adults, after he finishes his story, he offers practical advice, guidelines, and resources for those on the elder-care journey. I found this section helpful as well.

I received a copy of this book from the book’s publicist.To buy this book on Amazon.com, click this link:

 http://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Son-determination-memories-lost/dp/098481521X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336506953&sr=8-1