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barrypierce 's review for:
The South
by Colm Tóibín
Even in Tóibín’s first novel he has already set out the tropes (I’m using that word in the kindest terms) that have made his novels such staples of modern Irish literature. We have a woman in distress, Katherine, who’s exiled herself to Barcelona in order to forget her past in Ireland. A keen painter, Katherine is content with her new life until she meets a man one day and her past finally catches up with her. Reading Tóibín’s trademark filigree prose always reminds me of standing before one of Paul Henry’s vast cloudscapes. The utter simplistic beauty which draws you in and urges you examine every detail down to the stems and the dots. Hard to think this is a first novel. Tóibín is the master.