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vegantrav 's review for:
The All of It
by Jeannette Haien
Sometimes, I will just blindly pull a book from the shelves of the library, and this is how I came to read The All of It.
This novella is not something I would normally read, but once I started reading it, it hooked me.
An Irish priest visits one of his parishioners: Keven, a dying man, who tells Father Declan that he has a secret he must confess before he dies. The secret is a great lie, but before he can confess, Kevin dies.
And so it is left to Kevin's wife, Enda, to confess, but she will not confess. Imperious, proud, and unregretful yet still ashamed, Enda will tell to Father Declan the tale, but not as a confession. For the lie is none of God's business, she tells Father Declan.
Enda's tale is not terribly surprising, though the way it affects Father Declan is. The bulk of the book is taken up with Enda's tale, but the story is about Father Declan: it is the story of loneliness.
Haien has spun out an interesting little gem here, for who would have expected the tale of an Irish widower about her life in rural, mid-20th-century Ireland could be of any interest to an American in 2009?
I didn't think this was a great book or a compelling book or even a book with a great moral.
But I still liked it. Like Father Declan, I was somehow entranced with Enda's story.
This novella is not something I would normally read, but once I started reading it, it hooked me.
An Irish priest visits one of his parishioners: Keven, a dying man, who tells Father Declan that he has a secret he must confess before he dies. The secret is a great lie, but before he can confess, Kevin dies.
And so it is left to Kevin's wife, Enda, to confess, but she will not confess. Imperious, proud, and unregretful yet still ashamed, Enda will tell to Father Declan the tale, but not as a confession. For the lie is none of God's business, she tells Father Declan.
Enda's tale is not terribly surprising, though the way it affects Father Declan is. The bulk of the book is taken up with Enda's tale, but the story is about Father Declan: it is the story of loneliness.
Haien has spun out an interesting little gem here, for who would have expected the tale of an Irish widower about her life in rural, mid-20th-century Ireland could be of any interest to an American in 2009?
I didn't think this was a great book or a compelling book or even a book with a great moral.
But I still liked it. Like Father Declan, I was somehow entranced with Enda's story.