My Review:
O’Farrell’s talent as an author lies in her ability to weave together the points-of-view of multiple characters into one seamless and captivating story. The centerpiece of the book is the marriage of Daniel and Claudette but we view their histories and their paths toward each other through different people in their lives including ex-spouses, children, and employees.
The first person we encounter in the book is Daniel himself who is about to embark on a journey from his home in rural Donegal, Ireland to visit his family in Brooklyn, New York. It is his estranged father’s ninetieth birthday and Daniel is making the trip back home in an attempt to reconnect with his family. While Daniel is on his way to the United States memories of his past come flooding back and he decides that he wants to also reach out to his children, Niall and Phoebe from a previous marriage. The storyline moves back and forth between the present and the past; as he is travelling to the United States, where he hasn’t been in ten years, it is natural for Daniel to think of the two children whom he was forced to give up.
Daniel is a linguistics professor and while he spent time teaching at Berkeley he met his first wife. Their marriage had a bitter ending and his vengeful ex-wife wins custody of their two young children and refuses to allow Daniel to see them. One of my favorite parts of the book is Daniel’s reunion with Niall and Phoebe in a coffee shop in California where he explains to them that he never stopped trying to have a relationship with them. He wrote them hundreds of letters over the years, all of which their mother intercepted. This meeting is the beginning of a meaningful and long-lasting relationship with his oldest children.
Daniel’s next stop on his making amends tour is to Brooklyn where he has vivid and heartbreaking memories of his mother. She never seemed happy in her marriage and she was the only person in the family to have any real affection for Daniel. O’Farrell weaves into the narrative the life and struggles of Daniel’s mother and how his relationship with her has had a profound effect on his current life.
While Daniel is in Brooklyn, he decides to make one last stop in London before he finally goes home to Ireland. He learns that an ex-girlfriend from his college days died shortly after they broke up and Daniel feels responsible for her death. But while Daniel is on his making amends tour, his wife feels neglected and left out. It is ironic that Daniel’s making amends tour marks the beginning of trouble and estrangement for Daniel and Claudette.
Claudette is one of the most interesting characters in the book because she is quirky and unpredictable. The beginnings of her career as a world-famous actress are told in great detail from various points-of-view. While living in California with her long-time boyfriend and her five-year-old son, Ari, she decides that she just can’t take the attention and fame of being an actress any longer so she decides to disappear. Claudette ends up in a remote, old farmhouse in Donegal Ireland where she just so happens to run into Daniel. Their accidental meeting is a great example of O’Farrell’s deft ability to weave the lives of characters together with an amusing and heartwarming storyline.
The last part of the book focuses on Daniel and Claudette’s struggling marriage. By all accounts Daniel should be happy with Claudette, their two children and his career as a linguist. But his making amends tour appears to have had a negative effect on his mental stability and he begins to ignore what should be his greatest priorities. We are left wondering whether or not Daniel will be able to make amends one final time with Claudette. The place in the world where he seems happiest and where his life is the most complete is at that old farmhouse in Donegal. Will Daniel ever be able to make his way back to this life?
This is my first Maggie O’Farrell book and I am eager to explore her other titles. I am wondering if all of her books have such strong and interesting characters. Two of my favorite characters in this book are Daniel’s sons, Ari and Niall, and I think she could get two more books out of them alone.
About the Author:
This is the latest release from Persephone Press whose classic fiction I adore. This book is unlike any other I have read from their catalog so far. The entire time I was reading it I felt as if I were in the midst of a dream with lots of sounds and imagines, some vivid and some out-of-focus. And the dialogue was sparse and poetic, sometimes difficult to understand. The main character, a girl named Eliza, is an aspiring poet from a very tender age so it is no wonder that the author chose such a lyrical style for her novel.
Iris Wilkinson (1906-39), who wrote as Robin Hyde, is one of New Zealand’s major writers. Brought up in Wellington (her father was English and her mother Australian), she was encouraged to write poetry. At 17 she began work as a newspaper journalist. Hospitalised after a serious knee injury, she later gave birth to two illegitimate children – the first died, but her son, Derek Challis b. 1930, was fostered (and would wrote her biography in 2004). Despite two breakdowns, she continued to work ferociously hard, notably during 1934-5 at Auckland Mental Hospital when she wrote half of her total output; here she began her autobiographical novel 
Gavin Lamb is a thirty-one year old virgin who still lives at home with his parents. It’s not that he can’t afford to move out because he has a very lucrative career as a hairdresser in London. But he doesn’t like change and moving out of his childhood home would be more change than he could possibly handle. His doting and old-fashioned mother would also have a very hard time letting go of her son.
This latest release from Persephone Books is a charming and entertaining look into the life of a middle-aged British couple that has been married for twenty-seven years. When the book begins Mary is being told by her second eldest daughter, Rosemary, that she is engaged to be married. Mary tries very hard to be stoic about this announcement even though she is upset because another one of her children is flying the coop. Mary married John at a very young age and she has been a devoted wife and mother for her entire adult life. The thought that of all three of her children no longer need her makes her sad and she feels lost.
This novel opens in 1945 on the day in which the end of World War II has just been announced in the small village of Priory Dean. Everyone is celebrating and dancing in the streets but Martha Trevor and Edith Wilson still show up to their post duty at the Red Cross. During the course of their conversation we learn that they are from very different social classes; Martha is part of the upper-class gentry that live on the Hill in town and Edith is part of the working class families that live on the other end of town. At one point Edith worked as Martha’s housekeeper before Martha’s family hit some financially hard times.
The Book Binder's Daughter 