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All We Shall Know
‘Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He’s seventeen, I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher. I’d have killed myself by now if I was brave enough. I don’t think it would hurt the baby. His little heart would stop with mine. He wouldn't feel himself leaving one world of darkness for another, his spirit untangling itself from me.’
Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. Her husband doesn't take her news too well. She doesn't want to tell her father yet because he’s a good man and this could break him. She’s trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming – larger by the day – while the past won’t let her go. What she did to Breedie Flynn all those years ago still haunts her.
It’s a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody’s life.
Donal Ryan’s new novel is breathtaking, vivid, moving and redemptive.
Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. Her husband doesn't take her news too well. She doesn't want to tell her father yet because he’s a good man and this could break him. She’s trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming – larger by the day – while the past won’t let her go. What she did to Breedie Flynn all those years ago still haunts her.
It’s a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody’s life.
Donal Ryan’s new novel is breathtaking, vivid, moving and redemptive.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published September 22, 2016
About the author
Donal Ryan
10 books967 followersDonal Ryan is the author of the novels The Spinning Heart, The Thing About December, the short-story collection A Slanting of the Sun, and the forthcoming novel All We Shall Know. He holds a degree in Law from the University of Limerick, and worked for the National Employment Rights Authority before the success of his first two novels allowed him to pursue writing as a full-time career.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 581 reviews
January 29, 2018
This is Donal Ryan's third novel, and like The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December it is very impressive, in fact it may be his best yet. The Irish literary world is not short of young talent.
I was quite tempted to review it just by quoting one of the blurb review quotes, from Carlo Gebler: "[All That We Know ...] does what novels ought. It shows us people we would rather not know and by doing so helps us to be slightly kinder. The prose is also exquisite."
Ryan's characters, though not always likeable, are always believable and he has a great empathy for them. The narrator Melody Shee is trapped in an unhappy marriage to her childhood boyfriend Pat, until she seduces a young Traveller boy who she is teaching to read and becomes pregnant. The opening is striking: "Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He's seventeen, I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher. I'd have killed myself by now if I was brave enough."
The structure of the book is interesting. Each chapter follows a week in Melody's pregnancy - the first being week twelve in which she announces the news to Pat, and he leaves her. There is also a postscript which takes place several months after the birth . In places she also talks at length about her earlier life - she is haunted by her perceived responsibility for the suicide of her best friend, after joining in her bullying by the "cool girls" who were Pat's friends.
While looking for the child's father at the local Traveller site, she starts a conversation with Mary Crothery, a younger woman who is at the centre of a family feud because she has been unable to provide a child to her husband. Melody faces a feud of her own led by Pat's mother, and the two stories become closely entangled.
I don't know enough about the Irish Traveller community to know how accurate Ryan's portrayal of them is, but it is undoubtedly warm and sympathetic. His ability to inhabit his female characters is very impressive too. This is a fine book and a very moving one, though not always a comfortable read.
I was quite tempted to review it just by quoting one of the blurb review quotes, from Carlo Gebler: "[All That We Know ...] does what novels ought. It shows us people we would rather not know and by doing so helps us to be slightly kinder. The prose is also exquisite."
Ryan's characters, though not always likeable, are always believable and he has a great empathy for them. The narrator Melody Shee is trapped in an unhappy marriage to her childhood boyfriend Pat, until she seduces a young Traveller boy who she is teaching to read and becomes pregnant. The opening is striking: "Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He's seventeen, I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher. I'd have killed myself by now if I was brave enough."
The structure of the book is interesting. Each chapter follows a week in Melody's pregnancy - the first being week twelve in which she announces the news to Pat, and he leaves her. There is also a postscript which takes place several months after the birth . In places she also talks at length about her earlier life - she is haunted by her perceived responsibility for the suicide of her best friend, after joining in her bullying by the "cool girls" who were Pat's friends.
While looking for the child's father at the local Traveller site, she starts a conversation with Mary Crothery, a younger woman who is at the centre of a family feud because she has been unable to provide a child to her husband. Melody faces a feud of her own led by Pat's mother, and the two stories become closely entangled.
I don't know enough about the Irish Traveller community to know how accurate Ryan's portrayal of them is, but it is undoubtedly warm and sympathetic. His ability to inhabit his female characters is very impressive too. This is a fine book and a very moving one, though not always a comfortable read.
June 27, 2024
This novel is sad, dark and violent at times and very depressing. It’s one of those stories that gives you a pain in the gut and I wasn’t sure if I would finish it. I stuck with it because Donal’s writing is as stunningly descriptive and beautiful in its spareness as I found in other novels by him that I’ve read . While the main character is not very likable, there was something about her that drew my sympathies and had me wanting to know what would happen to her .
Melody Shee from small Irish town is in a marriage that seemed troubled from the beginning and reaches its inevitable end when she becomes pregnant by a 17 old boy, an Irish Traveller she was teaching to read . (I had never heard of this group of people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_T...). She reaches the depths of despair and self loathing with thoughts of self destruction, guilt and remorse over her past and now.
Becoming friends with another Traveller, a young woman shunned by her community for not being able to bear a child, changes the trajectory of both of their lives . A touching ending. Kudos to Ryan for successfully pulling off a first person narrative of a woman, who is pregnant no less . Donal Ryan is an Irish writer worth following.
Melody Shee from small Irish town is in a marriage that seemed troubled from the beginning and reaches its inevitable end when she becomes pregnant by a 17 old boy, an Irish Traveller she was teaching to read . (I had never heard of this group of people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_T...). She reaches the depths of despair and self loathing with thoughts of self destruction, guilt and remorse over her past and now.
Becoming friends with another Traveller, a young woman shunned by her community for not being able to bear a child, changes the trajectory of both of their lives . A touching ending. Kudos to Ryan for successfully pulling off a first person narrative of a woman, who is pregnant no less . Donal Ryan is an Irish writer worth following.
June 11, 2018
Oh, What Writing!
I could still fly to London and end this, and come back and say, Yes, Pat, I was lying, and he could persuade himself to believe me, and we could take a weekend break somewhere and be massaged together, and walk along a river hand in hand, and stand beneath a waterfall and feel the spray on our faces and laugh, and think about the cave behind the falling water, cut off from the world, and all the roaring peace to be found there, and have a drink in the bar after dinner, and go to bed, and turn to one another's flesh for warmth, and find only a hard coldness there, and no accommodation, no forgiveness of sins; and we'd turn away again from one another, and lie apart facing upwards and send words into eternity about babies never born, and needs unmet, and prostitutes and internet sex and terrible unforgivable sins and swirling infinities of blame and hollow retribution, and we could slow to a stop as the sun crept up, and turn from each other in familiar exhaustion, and sleep until checking-out time on pillows wet with tears.One paragraph, a single sentence, containing that one magnificent image: "and all the roaring peace to be found there." How perfectly the oxymoron captures the impossible gap between conflict and resolution! How perfectly Donal Ryan manages the modulation between romantic fantasy and cold reality—a reality that anyone who has tried to hold together a broken relationship will surely know. For the writing alone, simply brilliant.
I sent this excerpt to a Goodreads friend, Fionnuala. She agreed as to its quality, but went on: "But it sounds as if the entire story is contained in that single paragraph—so much so that it's difficult to imagine that there's anything left to fill the rest of the book." She is right, in a way. To a certain extent the book is fractal in nature, with each part containing miniature versions of much of the whole, each deepening and expanding what we knew before. There is something mesmerizing about this single voice, the inner monologue of a pregnant woman moving week by week through her second and third trimesters, musing about how she got pregnant by a boy barely half her age, how her marriage had begun to break down even before this, and remembering with shame the cruel things she herself did when barely out of her childhood. Painfully slowly, she begins to lift her head out of the present and past and consider a future. For fractals also make up bigger pictures, and the gradual unveiling of this one, though never easy, by no means follows the downward trajectory of my opening paragraph.
Melody Shee, the protagonist, is an educated Irish woman in her mid-thirties. She was young when she married Pat, the first and only man she ever kissed, a high-school sports star. But she has never been able to bring a baby to term, and Pat has turned to prostitutes. The father of her child now is Martin Toppy, a 17-year-old Traveller (gypsy) whom she was teaching to read. Their sex was only a single occasion, and Martin has now moved away, but going to his old camp site to return his books, Melody meets one of his relatives, a young woman named Mary Crothery, who is also fleeing a barren marriage. Foul-mouthed but innocent Mary is a splendid character. Though totally unsentimental, she "has a taste of the vision," and her uncritical intuition is exactly what Melody needs. And it turns out that Mary needs her too, for her split from her husband creates a rift between the Traveller clans that soon escalates to violence. Most of the shafts of sudden sunlight that irradiate the latter parts of this novel have to do with Mary, or with the rapprochement she brings about between Melody and her widowed father.
From the moment I opened the book, I was thinking five stars, and that magical paragraph on page 10 clinched it. But I won't say I never questioned that rating later. It is hard to imagine the cultured Melody, a writer and teacher, ever being married to Pat, who is never brought into focus as more than a handsome jock. I found it difficult to disentangle the timeline of those crucial early years when Melody turned to Pat and abandoned her best friend (the sin for which she cannot forgive herself). And I wish that Ryan had trusted more in his ability to stay, novella-style, within the mind of this one tormented but articulate woman, without turning to melodramatic external action to kick his story down the field. But every time I wonder whether this might not be a four-star after all, I come upon another miracle of writing, such as the brilliant Week Eighteen chapter whose paragraphs alternate between Mary Crothery and Pat's termagant mother Agnes, who comes to give Melody a piece of her mind—the greatest miracle being that this nonetheless ends with a reconciliation of sorts. Or scenes like this one, where Melody's father has been showing Mary how honeybees dance:
…and Mary's eyes were shining and brimming with some excitement, something she had to say to me that she'd learnt just moments ago, to see if I knew this wondrous thing that she now knew. And the sky and the earth and the cut grass and the chirruping of birds and the low drone of insects and the slant of light across my father's happy face and the gleam of wonder in Mary Crothery's eyes and the smell of the morning air and the weight of life inside me all seemed even, and easy, and massless, and perfect, and right, and every deficit seemed closed in that moment.
July 26, 2017
Melody Shee is tutoring a seventeen-year-old Traveller boy when she becomes pregnant with his child; she is nearly twice his age. Her husband Pat isn't too keen on this development, so he moves out. She is befriended by another Traveller, this one a young woman named Mary, who becomes a strange sounding board for Melody throughout her pregnancy. But the Travellers have their own traditions, and their own forms of justice. And, Melody might end up caught in the middle of a dangerous feud.
The author writes quite credibly as a woman, and takes us through the months of Melody's pregnancy. We're along for the occasionally bumpy ride as she begins to bond with the child she carries:
I feel him stirring all the time now, vaulting about his little world, happy and oblivious. I hold the weight of his existence in my left hand, and then my right hand, and I sometimes feel the flesh there swelling out, and I know then that I'm cupping his little body in my palm.
But life in Melody's little Irish Peyton Place of a town is not easy for her. Tongues wag, and most sympathies lie with her wronged husband, Pat, a man who was hardly a saint. I cheered aloud when she told off some nosy old biddies in a coffee shop:
Poor Pat? I suddenly screamed. Poor fucking Pat? And when I reached their booth I gripped the edge of their table and leant in close to their leathery faces and said: Ask poor Pat about his prostitutes. Ask him about the little girls from Latvia he fucked inside Limerick. And while you're at it, ask Ignatius Farrell and Brian Grogan and Padjoe Walsh about the hookers they've all been riding while their mothers were kneeling down at devotions and saying novenas and doing stations of the Cross in thanks to God that their boys are all married to grand girls.
At the end of the day, it's just Melody facing an uncertain future with only her baby for company.
My bump is tiny and neat and I cup my hands around it and stare at my naked self, and I think of Eve and all the sins done in the world since hers, and of my own sin, and I feel no shame, only a wonder that I could be standing here, admiring this small warm mound, my perfect swelling.
There's nothing to be felt now but a strangely blunt dissonance, a place without edges or dark corners, a soft, low buzzing in the background, like fabric gently tearing, a world of vague, uncertain shapes and sounds, stretching away behind my naked mirror image, the woman in the glass before me with her thumbs and forefingers touching on either side of her stomach, the space between her hands forming the shape of a heart against her flesh.
Melody's an interesting character. Though her thoughts are not always pleasant, I enjoyed spending some time inside her head.
The author writes quite credibly as a woman, and takes us through the months of Melody's pregnancy. We're along for the occasionally bumpy ride as she begins to bond with the child she carries:
I feel him stirring all the time now, vaulting about his little world, happy and oblivious. I hold the weight of his existence in my left hand, and then my right hand, and I sometimes feel the flesh there swelling out, and I know then that I'm cupping his little body in my palm.
But life in Melody's little Irish Peyton Place of a town is not easy for her. Tongues wag, and most sympathies lie with her wronged husband, Pat, a man who was hardly a saint. I cheered aloud when she told off some nosy old biddies in a coffee shop:
Poor Pat? I suddenly screamed. Poor fucking Pat? And when I reached their booth I gripped the edge of their table and leant in close to their leathery faces and said: Ask poor Pat about his prostitutes. Ask him about the little girls from Latvia he fucked inside Limerick. And while you're at it, ask Ignatius Farrell and Brian Grogan and Padjoe Walsh about the hookers they've all been riding while their mothers were kneeling down at devotions and saying novenas and doing stations of the Cross in thanks to God that their boys are all married to grand girls.
At the end of the day, it's just Melody facing an uncertain future with only her baby for company.
My bump is tiny and neat and I cup my hands around it and stare at my naked self, and I think of Eve and all the sins done in the world since hers, and of my own sin, and I feel no shame, only a wonder that I could be standing here, admiring this small warm mound, my perfect swelling.
There's nothing to be felt now but a strangely blunt dissonance, a place without edges or dark corners, a soft, low buzzing in the background, like fabric gently tearing, a world of vague, uncertain shapes and sounds, stretching away behind my naked mirror image, the woman in the glass before me with her thumbs and forefingers touching on either side of her stomach, the space between her hands forming the shape of a heart against her flesh.
Melody's an interesting character. Though her thoughts are not always pleasant, I enjoyed spending some time inside her head.
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July 10, 2017I am twenty percent in and to be honest that though is well written there is nothing I have read that entices me to read more. Disappointed because I have loved the other two novels by this author that I have read. Keep in mind, many have loved this book so it may just be my mood. Going to leave this unrated as I don't feel I have read enough to fairly judge.
September 30, 2022
The Irish author Donal Ryan (° 1977) can write, he has absolutely convinced me of that with this book. You can tell by almost every sentence that he's a real craftsman: the style is ingeniously simple, at the same time efficiently expressive, and some passages are of an unparalleled beauty. In fact, the book is one long, inner monologue, by an Irish woman, a 33-year-old teacher, Melody Shee. When the story/monologue starts, Melody appears to be in the 12th week of her pregnancy. The father is not her husband, but a 17-year-old apprentice, a boy from the "Travelers’ community" whom she taught to read and write. It is immediately the end of her marriage, which was already going very badly. And we also find ourselves in Catholic Ireland where adultery and extramarital pregnancies are devilish. In other words, the book starts at an absolute low point in Melody's life; she is clearly in an existential crisis: “I don't know why I'm the way I am, or even why I am. I can't see purpose to myself, nor could I ever.” Her monologue gradually adds elements that only reinforce her negative self-image.
The tone reminded me very much of Doris Lessing's introspective novels (especially The Memoirs of a Survivor), with also a bit of Albert Camus (The Fall) in it. The strongest are the moments of stillness, in which Ryan shows his impressive literary talent. Only, with this novel he clearly aimed primarily at creating atmosphere (and he certainly succeeded in that), not at analysis or in-depth. That is what makes this novel, and therefore also the character of Melody, rather superficial. Ryan, for example, brings interesting elements to Melody's dealings with the Traveler's community, but even here we remain dissatisfied. That lack of depth also explains why the ending of the story surprises us with its abruptness: Ryan finishes it with what we feel is a much too cheap catharsis. In short: with this 3rd novel, the Irish writer shows that he is certainly one of the better and more interesting writers of the moment, but unfortunately it does not meet all expectations.
The tone reminded me very much of Doris Lessing's introspective novels (especially The Memoirs of a Survivor), with also a bit of Albert Camus (The Fall) in it. The strongest are the moments of stillness, in which Ryan shows his impressive literary talent. Only, with this novel he clearly aimed primarily at creating atmosphere (and he certainly succeeded in that), not at analysis or in-depth. That is what makes this novel, and therefore also the character of Melody, rather superficial. Ryan, for example, brings interesting elements to Melody's dealings with the Traveler's community, but even here we remain dissatisfied. That lack of depth also explains why the ending of the story surprises us with its abruptness: Ryan finishes it with what we feel is a much too cheap catharsis. In short: with this 3rd novel, the Irish writer shows that he is certainly one of the better and more interesting writers of the moment, but unfortunately it does not meet all expectations.
February 7, 2017
This book is very short and also very intense. I was expecting to love it, but the intensity of the writing as well as the ending has left me conflicted. I'm not sure that I buy into how everything turned out, but I do appreciated how this novel got me thinking.
Basically, it's amazing how Donal Ryan manages to convey so many feelings and so many happenings over the span of 180 pages. We are inside the main character's head and sometimes that leads to stream-of-consciousness writing. I occasionally missed seeing things from other people's perspectives, but I was definitely intrigued to read Melody's story.
This book is not for the faint-hearted and it definitely leaves you with a claustrophobic and depressing impression. I was fascinated with its intensity, but as mentioned also conflicted about the ending as well as the feelings it produced in me.
Basically, it's amazing how Donal Ryan manages to convey so many feelings and so many happenings over the span of 180 pages. We are inside the main character's head and sometimes that leads to stream-of-consciousness writing. I occasionally missed seeing things from other people's perspectives, but I was definitely intrigued to read Melody's story.
This book is not for the faint-hearted and it definitely leaves you with a claustrophobic and depressing impression. I was fascinated with its intensity, but as mentioned also conflicted about the ending as well as the feelings it produced in me.
July 26, 2017
This is the 3rd Donal Ryan book I've read, and it pretty much falls in line with how I felt about the other two: it's short, emotional and beautifully written, but didn't necessarily leave the biggest impression on me. I appreciate that he has something to say about life, love and redemption. And most of his books seem to focus strongly on not just relationships between people, but how they break and heal and how we move on from difficult circumstances. It took me a bit to get invested into this one, but once I got acquainted with the characters and felt like I had a grip on where the story was going I started to like it a lot more. I'd give this 3.5 stars and say that if you're looking for something quick but powerful you should definitely check it out.
February 7, 2018
Miserable, intense and truly stunning. I adored this. The way guilt eats away at your insides forever; the way a marriage turns in on itself and poisons everything; the way we destroy the ones we love the most; the way we become consumed by another person and endlessly haunted…inevitable destruction and agony. Gorgeous writing. The dark, strange atmosphere has stayed with me.
That it’s come to this, love. It’s come to this and now there’s no going back, ever, and aren’t we better off? I made it come to this, to save myself, and to save him too, in a way. We both did terrible things, to save ourselves, to save each other, to make it so we’d have to leave each other, to leave each other alone. Now I imagine conversations all the time, words well-chosen and softly spoken that could have rescued our lives, our life. Or would they just have been a ragged bandage on a suppurating wound?
All the marks we ever made will fade away, and all the memories of all those things we ever did will die, and it will be as though we never existed. There’s no more to be done, now that we’ve committed our terminal atrocities. There’s nothing to be felt now but a strangely blunt dissonance, a place without edges or dark corners, a soft, low buzzing in the background, like fabric gently tearing, a world of vague, uncertain shapes and sounds, stretching away behind my naked mirror image, the woman in the glass before me with her thumbs and forefingers touching on either side of her stomach, the space between her hands forming the shape of a heart against her flesh.
That it’s come to this, love. It’s come to this and now there’s no going back, ever, and aren’t we better off? I made it come to this, to save myself, and to save him too, in a way. We both did terrible things, to save ourselves, to save each other, to make it so we’d have to leave each other, to leave each other alone. Now I imagine conversations all the time, words well-chosen and softly spoken that could have rescued our lives, our life. Or would they just have been a ragged bandage on a suppurating wound?
All the marks we ever made will fade away, and all the memories of all those things we ever did will die, and it will be as though we never existed. There’s no more to be done, now that we’ve committed our terminal atrocities. There’s nothing to be felt now but a strangely blunt dissonance, a place without edges or dark corners, a soft, low buzzing in the background, like fabric gently tearing, a world of vague, uncertain shapes and sounds, stretching away behind my naked mirror image, the woman in the glass before me with her thumbs and forefingers touching on either side of her stomach, the space between her hands forming the shape of a heart against her flesh.
August 25, 2017
There is sheer beauty in this new novel by Donal Ryan, with prose so breathtaking and finely crafted that it brought me to my knees. For that reason alone, the book will soar toward the top of my personal Best of 2017 list.
But the themes and content are also masterly and at the end of the day, this book is about a morally redemptive journey – a delivery, of sorts, from guilt and shame to selflessness, grace and self-forgiveness.
Melody Shee is pregnant and untethered, carrying the child of a 17-year-old Traveller boy whom she had been teaching. Her marriage has dissolved into a pattern of rage and emotional savagery. And Melody is still consumed with guilt about her betrayal of her fragile best friend.
All We Shall Know is structured into chapters coinciding with the advancement of Melody’s pregnancy – from the end of her first trimester to post-partum. During that time, she will meet a younger, outspoken Traveller woman named Mary Crothery who unwittingly “teaches the teacher” and helps her atone for her past mistakes.
As Melody’s life falls into harmony, she will understand what she must do to forgive herself and live an authentic life. This is an intense and elegant book about the journey towards forgiveness in an often unforgiving world.
But the themes and content are also masterly and at the end of the day, this book is about a morally redemptive journey – a delivery, of sorts, from guilt and shame to selflessness, grace and self-forgiveness.
Melody Shee is pregnant and untethered, carrying the child of a 17-year-old Traveller boy whom she had been teaching. Her marriage has dissolved into a pattern of rage and emotional savagery. And Melody is still consumed with guilt about her betrayal of her fragile best friend.
All We Shall Know is structured into chapters coinciding with the advancement of Melody’s pregnancy – from the end of her first trimester to post-partum. During that time, she will meet a younger, outspoken Traveller woman named Mary Crothery who unwittingly “teaches the teacher” and helps her atone for her past mistakes.
As Melody’s life falls into harmony, she will understand what she must do to forgive herself and live an authentic life. This is an intense and elegant book about the journey towards forgiveness in an often unforgiving world.
January 29, 2018
Sensational , short and beautifully written.
Ugh , It's been a while since I've read anything this captivating.
The writing style is so lyrical that it reads like poetry and evoques such beautiful feelings .
I was amazed , surprised , worried , shocked , sympathetic ... I was on a constant emotional roller coaster and I devoured this book in one setting!
But that ending though , why ? I just don't get it !
Looking forward to read his new book !
Ugh , It's been a while since I've read anything this captivating.
The writing style is so lyrical that it reads like poetry and evoques such beautiful feelings .
I was amazed , surprised , worried , shocked , sympathetic ... I was on a constant emotional roller coaster and I devoured this book in one setting!
But that ending though , why ? I just don't get it !
Looking forward to read his new book !
September 7, 2017
This book was stunning.
I'm struggling to give a brief summary of the plot, because although it's a relatively simple story, everything I write feels reductive of the emotional journey that Donal Ryan takes the reader on, and the larger themes that he explores in his narrative. The bare bones of the novel are this: 33-year-old, married Melody Shee finds herself pregnant by a 17-year-old boy who she was teaching to read. But it's not really a book about marriage and affairs. At the heart of this story is the bond that Melody forms with a young Traveller girl, Mary, as the focus shifts to their weird and unconventional friendship as Melody seeks atonement for something that happened in her past.
Ryan's prose is lyrical and gorgeous. It's the kind of carefully constructed writing that forces you to slow down and really take in each word. It's a short novel, but one that's not to be rushed through. I loved the experience of reading this as much as I love the impression it left me with.
This is ultimately a story about guilt, redemption, and betrayal, told with a searing and brutal honesty that made my heart race. This is one of those books that isn't afraid of confronting the ugliness of human nature - how we're capable of hurting those we love, how we lie to ourselves to cope with bad decisions we've made. I felt Melody's pain and regret so acutely while I was reading this.
All We Shall Know is an intense, draining, and emotionally exhausting read - and all in under 200 pages. This was my first Ryan novel, but I have The Spinning Heart sitting on my shelf, and I think I need to bump it up on my TBR after how much I loved this.
I'm struggling to give a brief summary of the plot, because although it's a relatively simple story, everything I write feels reductive of the emotional journey that Donal Ryan takes the reader on, and the larger themes that he explores in his narrative. The bare bones of the novel are this: 33-year-old, married Melody Shee finds herself pregnant by a 17-year-old boy who she was teaching to read. But it's not really a book about marriage and affairs. At the heart of this story is the bond that Melody forms with a young Traveller girl, Mary, as the focus shifts to their weird and unconventional friendship as Melody seeks atonement for something that happened in her past.
Ryan's prose is lyrical and gorgeous. It's the kind of carefully constructed writing that forces you to slow down and really take in each word. It's a short novel, but one that's not to be rushed through. I loved the experience of reading this as much as I love the impression it left me with.
This is ultimately a story about guilt, redemption, and betrayal, told with a searing and brutal honesty that made my heart race. This is one of those books that isn't afraid of confronting the ugliness of human nature - how we're capable of hurting those we love, how we lie to ourselves to cope with bad decisions we've made. I felt Melody's pain and regret so acutely while I was reading this.
All We Shall Know is an intense, draining, and emotionally exhausting read - and all in under 200 pages. This was my first Ryan novel, but I have The Spinning Heart sitting on my shelf, and I think I need to bump it up on my TBR after how much I loved this.
July 2, 2017
Melody Shee is pregnant and her husband Pat is not the father. The unborn child is the result of a tryst with Martin Toppy, a teenage Traveller. Shocked and enraged by the news, Pat leaves her. Alone with her thoughts, Melody feels terrified and ashamed. She's afraid to tell her elderly father in case the news breaks him. But then she meets a young Traveller woman named Mary Crothery and they hit it off. This unlikely friendship might just be the way out the dark hole Melody has found herself in.
Melody is a complex character. She is highly intelligent, with a university degree to her name and considerable portfolio as a journalist. Yet she is dogged by a sense of underachievement in her career, reduced to providing English lessons from her home. She also appears to have settled for less in her choice of partner, sticking with her childhood sweetheart who she has little in common with. Pat is no angel and commits sins of his own, but Melody seems to relish their arguments - "the hating years" as she calls them. She has an extremely short fuse and tends to lash out at the people she loves. She has despised herself for a long time and "wishes for fresh miseries." Later on in the story we find out why.
Once again, Donal Ryan proves himself a master at chronicling rural Irish life. The older generation, Melody's father included, cling to their religious beliefs and attend church every Sunday without fail. Young couples stew in run-down ghost estates, living for the weekend when they can escape to the city for a night out. The Celtic Tiger is long gone from these small towns and a stench of decay lingers. Ryan also deserves praise for his sensitive and authentic portrayal of the Travelling community, an ethnic minority in Ireland that are often depicted in lazy stereotypes.
And yet I am giving this novel three stars. It may seem a little harsh but it is only because I know that this immensely talented writer can do better. The repetitive nature of Melody's anger and self-destruction becomes tiresome, and the relentless misery makes the story a little hard to love. And the ending did not sit well with me - it was too neat for the stormy pages that preceded it. But where this book excels is in its examination of friendship, how a deep bond can be a salvation and how its severance can become a curse. All We Shall Know is a compassionate study of loneliness and redemption in an unsentimental portrait of rural Ireland.
Melody is a complex character. She is highly intelligent, with a university degree to her name and considerable portfolio as a journalist. Yet she is dogged by a sense of underachievement in her career, reduced to providing English lessons from her home. She also appears to have settled for less in her choice of partner, sticking with her childhood sweetheart who she has little in common with. Pat is no angel and commits sins of his own, but Melody seems to relish their arguments - "the hating years" as she calls them. She has an extremely short fuse and tends to lash out at the people she loves. She has despised herself for a long time and "wishes for fresh miseries." Later on in the story we find out why.
Once again, Donal Ryan proves himself a master at chronicling rural Irish life. The older generation, Melody's father included, cling to their religious beliefs and attend church every Sunday without fail. Young couples stew in run-down ghost estates, living for the weekend when they can escape to the city for a night out. The Celtic Tiger is long gone from these small towns and a stench of decay lingers. Ryan also deserves praise for his sensitive and authentic portrayal of the Travelling community, an ethnic minority in Ireland that are often depicted in lazy stereotypes.
And yet I am giving this novel three stars. It may seem a little harsh but it is only because I know that this immensely talented writer can do better. The repetitive nature of Melody's anger and self-destruction becomes tiresome, and the relentless misery makes the story a little hard to love. And the ending did not sit well with me - it was too neat for the stormy pages that preceded it. But where this book excels is in its examination of friendship, how a deep bond can be a salvation and how its severance can become a curse. All We Shall Know is a compassionate study of loneliness and redemption in an unsentimental portrait of rural Ireland.
October 23, 2018
4.5, rounded up.
As in Ryan's two Booker nominated novels, the prose here is absolutely gorgeous, and though the story he tells is rather bleak, the end feeling is one of total satisfaction. Ryan also does an incredible job in narrating the story through the protagonist, Melody Shee, a pregnant 30-something Irish woman, a feat of alchemy that is spot-on in all respects. The half star taken off is for the fact that, unlike his other books, I felt this dragged a bit in spots, and took me far longer to get through than it should have.
As in Ryan's two Booker nominated novels, the prose here is absolutely gorgeous, and though the story he tells is rather bleak, the end feeling is one of total satisfaction. Ryan also does an incredible job in narrating the story through the protagonist, Melody Shee, a pregnant 30-something Irish woman, a feat of alchemy that is spot-on in all respects. The half star taken off is for the fact that, unlike his other books, I felt this dragged a bit in spots, and took me far longer to get through than it should have.
September 27, 2016
Very,very good!
I'vd become a big fan of this writer.
I'vd become a big fan of this writer.
November 3, 2017
Holy Mother! This was blistering. Couldn’t put it down.
June 4, 2024
This was another novel by my favourite Irish author, so I was surprised at how slow it started out but, before too long, I was totally invested. It’s the story of a 33-year-old married woman who becomes pregnant by another man—a 17-year-old “traveller” she’d been tutoring for several weeks. The intensity increases once she tells her husband about it, and he leaves, unsurprisingly. Though completely unrelated, her traveller boy’s family moves on about the same time her husband moves out.
The book is divided—cleverly, I thought—into chapters labelled “Weeks”, beginning at Week Twelve to Week Forty, corresponding to her advancing pregnancy. In the 28 weeks she spends mostly on her own, she finds herself thinking back on the significant relationships in her life—the best friend she betrayed, the father she turned away from, and now her husband.
This was one of the most beautiful, inspiring books I’ve read in a while and I highly recommend it, without hesitation.
4.5 (rounded to 5) “It-takes-courage-to-be-kind” stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The book is divided—cleverly, I thought—into chapters labelled “Weeks”, beginning at Week Twelve to Week Forty, corresponding to her advancing pregnancy. In the 28 weeks she spends mostly on her own, she finds herself thinking back on the significant relationships in her life—the best friend she betrayed, the father she turned away from, and now her husband.
“What is it in me that breaks them down? I’m bad, for sure. There’s no kindness in me. I can feel it, and think about it, but I can never act it, or be it. … I know what it would take to be good, I knew all along, but I never could. I was always this way.”She continually comes back to this—her apparent inability to be kind. However, in the end (I could see it coming), she performed an act of pure and beautiful kindness. It was a thoroughly selfless act that would change many lives—all for the better—forever.
This was one of the most beautiful, inspiring books I’ve read in a while and I highly recommend it, without hesitation.
4.5 (rounded to 5) “It-takes-courage-to-be-kind” stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
August 25, 2018
Mich zieht es oft und immer öfter zu Neuerscheinungen, die nicht dem kompletten Hype unterliegen, von denen ich bisher am besten noch überhaupt nichts gehört habe und die ich völlig unvoreingenommen für mich entdecken kann. Wie ich auf „Die Lieben der Melody Shee“ gekommen bin weiß ich schon gar nicht mehr genau, aber der Klappentext klang einfach so gut, eben nach genau dem, was ich gerne lese.
Melody wird schwanger, aber nicht von ihrem Mann, sondern von einem minderjährigen Traveller, dem sie das Lesen beigebracht hat. Die Beziehung zu ihrem Mann ging schon länger in die Brüche und als sie ihm ihre Schwangerschaft offenbart, verlässt er sie und sie bleibt allein zurück mit dem Embryo in ihrem Bauch und suizidalen Gedanken in ihrem Kopf. Als sie Martin, dem Vater ihres ungeborenen Kindes, ein Buch zurückbringen möchte, lernt sie eine Verwandte von ihm kennen, die junge Travellerin Mary, die sie von nun an begleitet und die eine eigenartige aber irgendwie auch sehr schöne Freundschaft verbindet. Durch sie gibt es auch einige Einblicke in die Kultur der Traveller, vor allem in ihre Form der Selbstjustiz, die zum Schluss auch in einen nervenaufreibenden Höhepunkt mündet.
Während der Plot an sich – bis auf den lauten Auftakt – in meinen Augen insgesamt aber doch eher unspektakulär ist, hat mich an diesem Roman vor allem der Tonfall und der Schreibstil von Donal Ryan fesseln können und irgendwie auch die Intention, die ich hinter der Geschichte vermutete. Es ging nicht darum, zu werten – denn sicherlich haben beide, sowohl Melody, als auch ihr Mann Pat viele Fehler in der Beziehung gemacht und sind wahrlich alles andere als perfekt. Trotzdem – oder vielleicht auch deswegen – urteilt Donal Ryan nicht über die Figuren, sondern zeigt vielmehr, wie kompliziert Beziehungen sind, was Lebensumstände und Erwartungen aus ihnen machen können, wie sie aber auch wieder heilen können. Gerade Melodys Rückblicke in ihre Kindheit und Jugend haben viel über die Beziehung zu ihren Eltern, zu ihrer damals besten Freundin ausgesagt und waren – wenn sie auch nicht besonders schön waren – doch sehr aufrichtig und ehrlich.
Der Roman ist komplett aus Melodys Perspektive geschrieben – was manchmal etwas schade ist, da ich oftmals gerne auch mehr über die Gedanken der anderen Figuren erfahren hätte, gerade Mary ist ja ein ziemlich spannender Charakter. Dass Donal Ryan aber so authentisch über die Schwangerschaft einer jungen Frau erzählen kann, hat mich überrascht. Wenn ich etwas an diesem Buch fünf Sterne geben würde, dann wäre das mit großer Sicherheit der Schreibstil, der mich das Buch nahezu am Stück hat auslesen lassen.
Dennoch reichte all das aber nicht, um mich vollends zu überzeugen. „Die Lieben der Melody Shee“ ist intensiv und schön und rührt in dem Moment, in dem man es liest, an einem, aber es ist irgendwie auch kurzweilig und hat in mir einfach keinen wirklich bleibenden Eindruck hinterlassen. Allein wegen des Schreibstils wird dies aber sicher nicht mein letztes Buch des Autors gewesen sein.
Melody wird schwanger, aber nicht von ihrem Mann, sondern von einem minderjährigen Traveller, dem sie das Lesen beigebracht hat. Die Beziehung zu ihrem Mann ging schon länger in die Brüche und als sie ihm ihre Schwangerschaft offenbart, verlässt er sie und sie bleibt allein zurück mit dem Embryo in ihrem Bauch und suizidalen Gedanken in ihrem Kopf. Als sie Martin, dem Vater ihres ungeborenen Kindes, ein Buch zurückbringen möchte, lernt sie eine Verwandte von ihm kennen, die junge Travellerin Mary, die sie von nun an begleitet und die eine eigenartige aber irgendwie auch sehr schöne Freundschaft verbindet. Durch sie gibt es auch einige Einblicke in die Kultur der Traveller, vor allem in ihre Form der Selbstjustiz, die zum Schluss auch in einen nervenaufreibenden Höhepunkt mündet.
Während der Plot an sich – bis auf den lauten Auftakt – in meinen Augen insgesamt aber doch eher unspektakulär ist, hat mich an diesem Roman vor allem der Tonfall und der Schreibstil von Donal Ryan fesseln können und irgendwie auch die Intention, die ich hinter der Geschichte vermutete. Es ging nicht darum, zu werten – denn sicherlich haben beide, sowohl Melody, als auch ihr Mann Pat viele Fehler in der Beziehung gemacht und sind wahrlich alles andere als perfekt. Trotzdem – oder vielleicht auch deswegen – urteilt Donal Ryan nicht über die Figuren, sondern zeigt vielmehr, wie kompliziert Beziehungen sind, was Lebensumstände und Erwartungen aus ihnen machen können, wie sie aber auch wieder heilen können. Gerade Melodys Rückblicke in ihre Kindheit und Jugend haben viel über die Beziehung zu ihren Eltern, zu ihrer damals besten Freundin ausgesagt und waren – wenn sie auch nicht besonders schön waren – doch sehr aufrichtig und ehrlich.
Der Roman ist komplett aus Melodys Perspektive geschrieben – was manchmal etwas schade ist, da ich oftmals gerne auch mehr über die Gedanken der anderen Figuren erfahren hätte, gerade Mary ist ja ein ziemlich spannender Charakter. Dass Donal Ryan aber so authentisch über die Schwangerschaft einer jungen Frau erzählen kann, hat mich überrascht. Wenn ich etwas an diesem Buch fünf Sterne geben würde, dann wäre das mit großer Sicherheit der Schreibstil, der mich das Buch nahezu am Stück hat auslesen lassen.
Dennoch reichte all das aber nicht, um mich vollends zu überzeugen. „Die Lieben der Melody Shee“ ist intensiv und schön und rührt in dem Moment, in dem man es liest, an einem, aber es ist irgendwie auch kurzweilig und hat in mir einfach keinen wirklich bleibenden Eindruck hinterlassen. Allein wegen des Schreibstils wird dies aber sicher nicht mein letztes Buch des Autors gewesen sein.
April 21, 2024
Mad bitch, said the smiling man.
And I said back: You're only fucking jealous of your man in number eleven. I haven't met a man who wasn't a sex offender. There should be petitions against all of ye. (PG 54)
The story opens up with Melody Shee telling us she's a thirty-three year old married woman pregnant by a seventeen year old boy she's tutoring. Immediate thoughts? WTF Melody, you disgusting piece of crap!? She doesn't tell anyone who the baby daddy is just that she slept with some online rando. But as I continued reading her thoughts I almost, almost, felt sorry for her.
This story has been making recent headlines in the last few years. Married young female teachers sleeping with young boys. Is this a competition with the men teachers so we can all be equal and gross together?
And by the end of this unfortunate story can Melody Shee find redemption by doing the hardest thing possible? That was the part where I felt uncertain about. Do I respect her or do I hate her more for it?
Donal Ryan is an Irishman but he can write like the woman inside of him. He creates believable characters full of dimensions and layers of drama that make the reader think more than what's on the page. His writing is fantastic but was all over the place in this one.
(Side Note::: Read in Leon, Guanajauto on the way to Tijuana and back to the US)
And I said back: You're only fucking jealous of your man in number eleven. I haven't met a man who wasn't a sex offender. There should be petitions against all of ye. (PG 54)
The story opens up with Melody Shee telling us she's a thirty-three year old married woman pregnant by a seventeen year old boy she's tutoring. Immediate thoughts? WTF Melody, you disgusting piece of crap!? She doesn't tell anyone who the baby daddy is just that she slept with some online rando. But as I continued reading her thoughts I almost, almost, felt sorry for her.
This story has been making recent headlines in the last few years. Married young female teachers sleeping with young boys. Is this a competition with the men teachers so we can all be equal and gross together?
And by the end of this unfortunate story can Melody Shee find redemption by doing the hardest thing possible? That was the part where I felt uncertain about. Do I respect her or do I hate her more for it?
Donal Ryan is an Irishman but he can write like the woman inside of him. He creates believable characters full of dimensions and layers of drama that make the reader think more than what's on the page. His writing is fantastic but was all over the place in this one.
(Side Note::: Read in Leon, Guanajauto on the way to Tijuana and back to the US)
December 16, 2018
This is a cracking good book. I loved the characters so magnificently drawn and realised by this author. He has an exceptional gift for making me love and hate them in equal measure.
The writing is lyrical, poetic whilst being truthful and brutal but so very human.
All of the people in this book are damaged in one way or another and it could be perceived as dark and depressing but I think it's more about hope.
On top of all this the story for the most part is told brilliantly from the perspective of a woman Melody Shee who is pregnant with the baby of a Traveller, a young man she was teaching to read.
Donal Ryan tells this story using the weeks of her pregnancy as chapter headings and as we count up from week 12 to post partum.
A special shout out to Melodys Dad who with his quiet ways and economical use of words, though every one of them was exactly the right one at the right time reminded me so much of my own Dad.
The only reason I didn't give this 5 * is that the ending wasn't what I wanted or hoped for, but then again that's not up to me eh?
The writing is lyrical, poetic whilst being truthful and brutal but so very human.
All of the people in this book are damaged in one way or another and it could be perceived as dark and depressing but I think it's more about hope.
On top of all this the story for the most part is told brilliantly from the perspective of a woman Melody Shee who is pregnant with the baby of a Traveller, a young man she was teaching to read.
Donal Ryan tells this story using the weeks of her pregnancy as chapter headings and as we count up from week 12 to post partum.
A special shout out to Melodys Dad who with his quiet ways and economical use of words, though every one of them was exactly the right one at the right time reminded me so much of my own Dad.
The only reason I didn't give this 5 * is that the ending wasn't what I wanted or hoped for, but then again that's not up to me eh?
May 30, 2017
Donal Ryan writes beautiful sentences, and I was amazed that a man could write the internal monologue of a woman so convincingly. Even though Melody's stream of consciousness is not always a comfortable place to be, the voice felt authentic even when it was disturbing.
Few people in a bad relationship see themselves or their actions clearly, but Melody recognized her faults even if she made no effort to correct or change them. " I'd sit and think and my mind would light on something or other he'd said and I'd start to heat up a bit, and start to bubble and boil, and by the time he came back I'd have twisted all the calm logic of hours into a new and ferocious weapon to use on him." Even though it is difficult to find many likeable qualities in Melody, I love that Donal Ryan never presents her as a victim or a helpless woman. Her husband cheats on her, but she drove him to it. She made her bed and she lies in it. "I don't know why I'm the way I am, or even why I am. I can't see purpose to myself, nor could I ever."
There are many beautiful sections I highlighted as I read this book, and most of these sections have to do with Melody's recollection of her past with Pat. I would have like more of their history and more of how/why her seduction of Martin came about. The sections with Mary were less interesting to me, but they were necessary for Melody to serve her penance, if that is even possible.
3.5 stars
Few people in a bad relationship see themselves or their actions clearly, but Melody recognized her faults even if she made no effort to correct or change them. " I'd sit and think and my mind would light on something or other he'd said and I'd start to heat up a bit, and start to bubble and boil, and by the time he came back I'd have twisted all the calm logic of hours into a new and ferocious weapon to use on him." Even though it is difficult to find many likeable qualities in Melody, I love that Donal Ryan never presents her as a victim or a helpless woman. Her husband cheats on her, but she drove him to it. She made her bed and she lies in it. "I don't know why I'm the way I am, or even why I am. I can't see purpose to myself, nor could I ever."
There are many beautiful sections I highlighted as I read this book, and most of these sections have to do with Melody's recollection of her past with Pat. I would have like more of their history and more of how/why her seduction of Martin came about. The sections with Mary were less interesting to me, but they were necessary for Melody to serve her penance, if that is even possible.
3.5 stars
December 11, 2017
Melody Shea is 33, and pregnant but not by her husband Pat. The Guardian review referred to Melody as a repulsive protagonist. I found Melody compelling and her husband unworthy of her affection. I'm glad I didn't read the review before reading the book. Ryan examines the Traveller community in Ireland as Melody is involved with one, then another young traveller as she works to teach them to read. The novel examines her life from her teenage years to the present. If Melody is to be despised it is probably her teenage self whose actions I hated. The Traveller community is portrayed in its violence, and its tribalness. Melody gets closer to them than other outsiders referred to as "country people" or "settled people" by the travellers.
Because it's Donal Ryan the writing is exquisite. This is a literary novel with a story, and an ending that surprised and satisfied me.
Because it's Donal Ryan the writing is exquisite. This is a literary novel with a story, and an ending that surprised and satisfied me.
February 10, 2017
Melody and Pat Shee are married. Melody is pregnant - but Pat is not the father.
So begins a tale of a strained marriage, secrets, lies, shame - this story follows Melody through her pregnancy and looks at her relationship with the travelling community.
As with all Donal Ryan books I think you're better off going in blind so I never like to say too much - just if you're into solid, clever writing about rural communities, contemporary Ireland and human emotion, this writer should be your first stop. My absolute favourite author in Ireland today.
So begins a tale of a strained marriage, secrets, lies, shame - this story follows Melody through her pregnancy and looks at her relationship with the travelling community.
As with all Donal Ryan books I think you're better off going in blind so I never like to say too much - just if you're into solid, clever writing about rural communities, contemporary Ireland and human emotion, this writer should be your first stop. My absolute favourite author in Ireland today.
March 30, 2017
I enjoyed it, it was a bit too lyrical for my taste, but the author is really good at packing so much emotion in such a short book.
The main character was not what we'd call likable, she was considerably troubled and her perspective was quite hopeless, but I didn't dislike being in her head. I even felt sympathy for her. And for her husband. And for Mary. And especially for her father. The ending was a little convoluted and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
The main character was not what we'd call likable, she was considerably troubled and her perspective was quite hopeless, but I didn't dislike being in her head. I even felt sympathy for her. And for her husband. And for Mary. And especially for her father. The ending was a little convoluted and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
May 17, 2023
Set in Ireland, this book is a sad story about a thirty-three-year-old Irish teacher who finds herself pregnant by a young Traveller man she has been tutoring. The baby's father is not her husband, and the husband promptly leaves. He has his own issues and felt like it was revenge for his misdeeds. The storyline follows each week of protagonist (and narrator) Melody’s pregnancy. The reader is privy to her memories of better days, regrets, feelings of exclusion, admiration for a young woman Traveller she befriends, and love for her widower father.
The Travellers are an Irish ethnic minority, similar to the Romany and the prejudice against them plays a key role in the novel. It is quite a bold move for a male author to write of female pregnancy. I felt a sense of dread for what might happen to her. Themes include guilt, atonement, social transgressions, and the lasting impact of youthful mistakes. It will appeal to those who enjoy introspective stories. It is not quite my preferred reading since it contains a litany of misery. The best part of this book, for me, is the author’s beautiful atmospheric writing. I did not quite buy in to the ending.
3.5
The Travellers are an Irish ethnic minority, similar to the Romany and the prejudice against them plays a key role in the novel. It is quite a bold move for a male author to write of female pregnancy. I felt a sense of dread for what might happen to her. Themes include guilt, atonement, social transgressions, and the lasting impact of youthful mistakes. It will appeal to those who enjoy introspective stories. It is not quite my preferred reading since it contains a litany of misery. The best part of this book, for me, is the author’s beautiful atmospheric writing. I did not quite buy in to the ending.
3.5
September 23, 2016
Donal Ryan's writing has an elegance and depth of feeling which is so rare. I was incredibly moved reading his novel “The Thing About December” and his short story collection “A Slanting of the Sun.” But his new novel “All We Shall Know” actually had me crying in some scenes – and that happens very rarely when I'm reading. It's also not often I'll turn the last page of a novel and say 'Wow!' Not only does Ryan completely draw the reader into the narrator Melody's dilemma (a thirty-three year old married woman who is pregnant from her younger student) and create a suspenseful story of broken families and conflicts within the Traveller community in Ireland, but his writing is also stunningly beautiful. The chapter headings in this novel chart the weeks of Melody's pregnancy. As the baby grows, the crisis of her situation becomes more alarming. This is a powerful novel about relationships, guilt and betrayal.
Read my full review of All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan on LonesomeReader
Read my full review of All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan on LonesomeReader
October 4, 2018
Each chapter is a week in the pregnancy of Melody Shee, an Irish woman of 33 who is carrying the child of a 17 year old traveller. Melody befriends another traveller, Mary, who has been exiled from her family for failing to conceive. I loved the characters in this short novel, Melody's dreamy musings, her lovely father, Mary and her troubles, and how Ryan took us backwards into Melody's and her husband's angry relationship, cleverly drip feeding us information about them both that kept me switching from one side to the other.
Perhaps the ending was a little too neat, but still a very enjoyable novel.
Perhaps the ending was a little too neat, but still a very enjoyable novel.
November 20, 2021
"Hoy en el supermercado, me he parado delante de un congelador repleto de pizzas, he dejado el cesto en el suelo y he abierto la puerta corrediza de cristal. Allí delante, con los ojos cerrados, he disfrutado de la bendita ráfaga de aire fresco que salía del congelador."
He elegido esta frase para empezar la reseña quizás porque define perfectamente el estado de ánimo continuo en el que se encuentra Melody Shee, la protagonista de esta soberbia novela de Donal Ryan. Melody Shee, una mujer en la treintena, que se ve inmersa en un embarazo inesperado, que además no será hijo de su marido y que hace trizas la vida que había estado llevando hasta ahora, convierte el meter la cabeza en este congelador de pizzas en una especie de grito desesperado y liberador en un intento por encontrar una salida a la oscuridad y presión que la envuelve.
Donal Ryan nos presenta una historia a priori sencilla, simple: seguir el embarazo de una mujer a través de breves capítulos que se corresponden con las semanas de embarazo, una cuenta atrás hasta el último capitulo titulado Posparto. Es una novela construida como un diario personal porque está contada en primera persona por Melody y a través de ella, no solo nos confronta con este embarazo sino con el caos en el que estaba viviendo con un matrimonio insatisfecho, un padre alejado, la falta de un trabajo estable y el trauma de la desaparición de su mejor amiga años antes, un hecho que no había cicatrizado quizá porque la misma Melody se sentía culpable. El hecho de que Melody Shee viva en un pueblo pequeño y cerrado, donde todos conocen la vida de todos, y cuando en el momento en que comienza la novela es precisamente Melody el blanco de todos los cotilleos, sumado al hecho de que Melody lleve una vida que odia, son aprovechados magistralmente por el autor para sumergirnos en una atmósfera de claustrofobia social.
"Hay matrimonios que duran vidas enteras, década tras década; personas que permanecen juntas grandes períodos de tiempo, hasta llegar a habitar prácticamente la misma piel; personas que crecen la una en la otra, que se encogen para ajustarseal tamaño y la forma de la pareja, que hablan con la misma voz, que apenas se separan. El amor no tiene nada que ver con eso."
“La única certeza”, una traducción acertadísima del título original, es un viaje emocional en la vida de una mujer en un momento clave de su vida y que a mí por lo menos, me ha emocionado muchísimo en numerosos pasajes porque la prosa de Donal Ryan es exquisita y porque convierte la cotidianeidad en pura poesia.
No creo que sea muy relevante resumir el argumento de esta novela precisamente porque hay que ir descubriéndola a medida que la novela va evolucionado pero si quiero comentar que cada uno de los personajes que rodean la vida de Melody me han emocionado y es a través de ellos cómo vemos también la evolución de Melody porque temas como la venganza, la soledad, la insatisfacción personal con tu propia vida, las rencillas familiares aquieren aquí significados universales, que cada uno de nosotros podría reconocer de su propia vida. No es una novela difícil, todo lo contrario, pero si que es una novela que nos enfrenta a la dureza del día a día y a medida que la leía no podía por menos de sorprenderme por lo acertadamente que Donal Ryan exponía frente a nosotros hechos tan cotidianos; otro acierto también es el hecho de que no ha construido personajes perfectos, hay momentos en que la misma Melody Shee sorprende al lector por su rudeza, y por su injusticia, pero todo esto forma parte de la evolución personal del ser humano.
Mary Crothery, Pat, Martin Toppy, Breedie Flynn y el padre, junto a la propia Melody, son personajes que se te quedan ya grabados gracias a la capacidad de Donal Ryan de adentrarnos en la condición humana, en la memoria y en la capacidad del ser humano para superarse a si mismo. No he leído todavía "Corazón Giratorio", pero voy a por él. La traducción es de Ana Crespo.
"Es imposible contar la historia de una vida, una amistad, una muerte o un matrimonio día tras día tras día. Tomemos la historia de mis padres. ¿Cómo sonaría si la comprimiésemos en unos cuantos párrafos? (...) ¿Cuánto significado se perdería al contarlas, al transformar innumerables momentos, todos ellos distintos, en líneas de texto? Cuesta imaginar el peso que esas líneas tendrían que soportar?"
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021...
He elegido esta frase para empezar la reseña quizás porque define perfectamente el estado de ánimo continuo en el que se encuentra Melody Shee, la protagonista de esta soberbia novela de Donal Ryan. Melody Shee, una mujer en la treintena, que se ve inmersa en un embarazo inesperado, que además no será hijo de su marido y que hace trizas la vida que había estado llevando hasta ahora, convierte el meter la cabeza en este congelador de pizzas en una especie de grito desesperado y liberador en un intento por encontrar una salida a la oscuridad y presión que la envuelve.
Donal Ryan nos presenta una historia a priori sencilla, simple: seguir el embarazo de una mujer a través de breves capítulos que se corresponden con las semanas de embarazo, una cuenta atrás hasta el último capitulo titulado Posparto. Es una novela construida como un diario personal porque está contada en primera persona por Melody y a través de ella, no solo nos confronta con este embarazo sino con el caos en el que estaba viviendo con un matrimonio insatisfecho, un padre alejado, la falta de un trabajo estable y el trauma de la desaparición de su mejor amiga años antes, un hecho que no había cicatrizado quizá porque la misma Melody se sentía culpable. El hecho de que Melody Shee viva en un pueblo pequeño y cerrado, donde todos conocen la vida de todos, y cuando en el momento en que comienza la novela es precisamente Melody el blanco de todos los cotilleos, sumado al hecho de que Melody lleve una vida que odia, son aprovechados magistralmente por el autor para sumergirnos en una atmósfera de claustrofobia social.
"Hay matrimonios que duran vidas enteras, década tras década; personas que permanecen juntas grandes períodos de tiempo, hasta llegar a habitar prácticamente la misma piel; personas que crecen la una en la otra, que se encogen para ajustarseal tamaño y la forma de la pareja, que hablan con la misma voz, que apenas se separan. El amor no tiene nada que ver con eso."
“La única certeza”, una traducción acertadísima del título original, es un viaje emocional en la vida de una mujer en un momento clave de su vida y que a mí por lo menos, me ha emocionado muchísimo en numerosos pasajes porque la prosa de Donal Ryan es exquisita y porque convierte la cotidianeidad en pura poesia.
No creo que sea muy relevante resumir el argumento de esta novela precisamente porque hay que ir descubriéndola a medida que la novela va evolucionado pero si quiero comentar que cada uno de los personajes que rodean la vida de Melody me han emocionado y es a través de ellos cómo vemos también la evolución de Melody porque temas como la venganza, la soledad, la insatisfacción personal con tu propia vida, las rencillas familiares aquieren aquí significados universales, que cada uno de nosotros podría reconocer de su propia vida. No es una novela difícil, todo lo contrario, pero si que es una novela que nos enfrenta a la dureza del día a día y a medida que la leía no podía por menos de sorprenderme por lo acertadamente que Donal Ryan exponía frente a nosotros hechos tan cotidianos; otro acierto también es el hecho de que no ha construido personajes perfectos, hay momentos en que la misma Melody Shee sorprende al lector por su rudeza, y por su injusticia, pero todo esto forma parte de la evolución personal del ser humano.
Mary Crothery, Pat, Martin Toppy, Breedie Flynn y el padre, junto a la propia Melody, son personajes que se te quedan ya grabados gracias a la capacidad de Donal Ryan de adentrarnos en la condición humana, en la memoria y en la capacidad del ser humano para superarse a si mismo. No he leído todavía "Corazón Giratorio", pero voy a por él. La traducción es de Ana Crespo.
"Es imposible contar la historia de una vida, una amistad, una muerte o un matrimonio día tras día tras día. Tomemos la historia de mis padres. ¿Cómo sonaría si la comprimiésemos en unos cuantos párrafos? (...) ¿Cuánto significado se perdería al contarlas, al transformar innumerables momentos, todos ellos distintos, en líneas de texto? Cuesta imaginar el peso que esas líneas tendrían que soportar?"
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021...
August 9, 2017
Melody is pregnant and has told her husband he is not the father. This raw, viceral novella follows the weeks of her pregnancy, her interactions with the judgemental community around her, with the exception of her father, his acceptance and her feeling of how she has disappointed him, keeping her away from the one person who might provide her solace.
Instead she begins to spend time with a Traveller girl Mary, who has her own set of circumstances that are causing her to suffer, circumstances that she did not bring upon herself, and yet her community too is judging her harshly, violently for.
The two woman come together and bear witness to each others days and provide some semblance of support for each other, leading up to the inevitable birth, the symbol of new life, a new beginning.
Absolutely stunning, I could not put this down, my only regret that it was all over so quickly. I'd read Donal Ryan's debut The Spinning Heart, which I enjoyed, but this was exceptional.
Instead she begins to spend time with a Traveller girl Mary, who has her own set of circumstances that are causing her to suffer, circumstances that she did not bring upon herself, and yet her community too is judging her harshly, violently for.
The two woman come together and bear witness to each others days and provide some semblance of support for each other, leading up to the inevitable birth, the symbol of new life, a new beginning.
Absolutely stunning, I could not put this down, my only regret that it was all over so quickly. I'd read Donal Ryan's debut The Spinning Heart, which I enjoyed, but this was exceptional.
June 19, 2022
Incredible novel about guilt and redemption, and full of chuckles. The amount of insight is astounding. It takes a bit at first to get used to the writing, with the long sentences and slang, but once past that pure gem. It's been a long time a book had me crying. I lost my dad less than two years ago, so the father daughter relationship throughout the book was really touching. A pregnancy book written by a man, wow right... And he does it brilliantly. I can't say enough good things about All We Shall Know. A little piece of heaven in under 200 pages. Not to be missed, unless you don't have a sense of humour concerning the sexes, especially, then maybe not your cup of tea. It's a battleground, and if you are open-minded you'll laugh it off your shoulders. And yes the Irish do crazy like no one else. Truly one of a kind reading.
And no not exactly politically correct. Charming in its sincerity no doubt.
And no not exactly politically correct. Charming in its sincerity no doubt.
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