On meeting Fintan, readers may feel quickly drawn into the increasing out-of-body experiences of this mildly panicking lawyer and his unaware family.
We may recall times where the familiar morphs into something very, very strange, often from a dream, our own past, or even a fantasy far out of the present time and place.

Insights such as "...to distract them with things they will immediately forget" alternate smoothly with the joys and trials of family living.
Descriptions of both character and locale are pictured precisely, as Deirdre Madden deftly places us inside each home, each character and their interactions.

Histories of both photography and Ireland are woven into Fintan's mental states and connections with the past history of his family.

(The use of "gypped" feels oddly unevolved.)

A rare vegetarian sensibility is smoothly handled, as is a brief nod to country girls.

The Cookie with Smarties is thankfully not offered up as a Madeline.

Just wish the ending was stronger...

For the non-British: biscuit = cookie, jumper = sweater, and the always disconcerting, rug = blanket. ( )

Hooray, I have found my next Jane Gardam (favorite author but elderly)! Irish author Deirdre Madden's books are atmospheric character studies. In this novel, it's five lives that appear to be little on the surface, but Madden is like a child quietly studying ants moving crumbs - the more patient she is, the more that is revealed. In this novel, Fintan has the loudest voice, though on the surface he is Everyman in Dublin during the good times that preceded the financial collapse of 2008. He's got a horrible mother - "Joan is one of those people who drain energy from those around them. She does it to such a degree that sometimes...Fintan feels like he is caught up in a science fiction story, and that his mother is an alien masquerading as an elderly Dublin woman, who siphons off energy to convert it into - what? Inert gases? An alternative fuel? Some kind of antimatter?"

Happily, Fintan has a wonderful wife and three smart children, a brilliant sister and a kind aunt. And their stories spread and their points of view are shared until this small Dublin world becomes so completely inhabitable that the reader never wants to leave. ( )

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present

T. S. Eliot, from the Four Quartets

This book grew on me as I read it. On the surface the story of the extended Buckley family, a story in which very little happens but the reader learns about the complex interconnections of the members of the family and their meditations on time, memory, and history. The father, Fintan, is undergoing some mid-life changes, becoming somewhat detached from his job and developing an interest in old photographs and their relationship to reality; in the course of the novel, some family secrets are ultimately revealed. However, the pleasure of this book derives from Madden's writing talent, the reader's gradually developing familiarity with each of the distinctly drawn characters, and the fondness the members of this mostly happy family have for each other and their life together (so much for Tolstoy). I had never heard of Madden before I spotted this book on the display table at my favorite bookstore, but I'll look for more of her work.

My first reaction is, I loved this book and I feel like Madden deserves a lot more exposure in the US. It's about an ordinary family but it's anything but ordinary. The writing is lyrical, smooth and economical; the plot is pretty minimal and it really is about these people, so well-drawn that I feel like I could turn around and see them on the street. I really want to read her other books! ( )

Time Present and Time Past by Deirdre Madden
The focal point of Madden's lyrical reflection on time, memory, and nostalgia is Fintan Buckley--a middle-aged, moderately successful, and happily married lawyer--who is surprised to find himself lapsing into a sort of mystical reflectiveness. Fintan's problem all along, according to his prickly, imposing and stylish elderly mother is that he is possessed of too much heart--"functionally intelligent" but deficient in the ambition that she herself possessed as a young woman--ambition that was thwarted by her overbearing father who did not believe in education for girls. In the Buckley family, one is either a hawk or a dove. Fintan is the latter.

Fintan is experiencing a mid-life re-evaluation of sorts, one that finds him revisiting the past. His university-aged son points out that the past Fintan sees is viewed through rose-coloured glasses--devoid of the unpleasant smells and hardness of real life. Fintan is mistaking the medium for the reality, says Niall. Fintan's sister, the strikingly beautiful Marita, previously a high-end fashion buyer in London, has within the last couple of years returned abruptly to Dublin after a trauma which is eventually revealed. More estranged from their mother than Fintan, she initially sought refuge in the Dublin home of her aunt and uncle, a house little changed from the days of Uncle Christy's deceased parents. When Christy suddenly dies, Marita stays on with her beloved aunt in the house of old things.

Marita's relationship with the past stands in contrast to Fintan's. So painful is the experience that landed her back in Ireland that she has walled off part of her memory. The siblings make a sort of peace with the past by reconnecting with a cousin whom they haven't seen since late childhood. During that long-ago time, so the story goes, their mother stopped their trips to the north because of The Troubles. However, it was more than that: Fintan and Marita's mother seems to have been repelled by the dirtiness of the rural farming life of her husband's family, underscoring her sense that she has married below herself. The visit Fintan and Marita end up making to cousin Edward and the farm in the north allows a reconciliation of past and present for both siblings.

Madden's book is generally beautifully rendered. I say "generally" because about four-fifths of the way through, a sudden jarring turn in narration and a clanging shift in authorial voice occurs. The reader is propelled into a disquisition of sorts on the fate of the Buckley family two years into the future, when Ireland is reeling under the economic downturn. The abruptness of this break in the narrative destroys the dreamlike quality of the story, and it never quite gets back on track after this. It makes sense that an examination of nostalgia should be counterbalanced with a consideration of the future, but the gracelessness of this section mars what is otherwise a very lovely piece of work.

This is the first book of Deirdre Madden's I've read and I look forward to reading more of her work. Many thanks to Net Galley for granting me permission to read and comment on a digital ARC. ( ) ( )