This book is in the grand tradition of books that try to do a life end-to-end. It was engaging and I enjoyed it, skipping through 700+ pages in no time. But somehow it has not stayed with me hardly at all. God, writing is crazy. Readers are so difficult! If I was this author I would be like: WTF! WHAT DO YOU WANT WOMAN?!? And to be fair I guess I don’t know.
One thing I did take from this book was that Ireland was rough in the 1950s. This seems to be a trend of this year, because I got the same message loud and clear from LOVE AND SUMMER by William Trevor, from SMALL THINGS LIKE THIS by Claire Keegan, and etc. Ireland 1950s needs to up its PR budget