Sumptous ... This deceptively slim memoir expands out into something far greater than you might expect. In what amounts to not much more than a long magazine article, he creates a sweeping, lyrical portrait of the small-town idiosyncrasies, natural landscapes and family histories in southeast Ireland on which his novels have drawn for three decades ... But fittingly, it’s precisely the details of that provincial world (the setting of so many of his novels) that Toibin conjures up superbly here.
The breadth of the collection is impressive ... Written with brutal clarity and flashes of humour, it encapsulates Tóibín as a whole, a master of light and shade.
These essays speak in the first person, but are not introspective. It is only in the opening piece, an account of his treatment for testicular cancer, that you get much self-revelation ... This essay brilliantly describes the trance states induced by his enforced dependence on pharmaceuticals, through intensive chemotherapy and steroid treatment. Here, as throughout the collection, it is the droll, melancholy elegance of the prose that guarantees the reader’s enjoyment.
