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A Guest at the Feast: Essays
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About This Book
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by LitHub and The Millions ! From one of the most engaging and brilliant writers of our time comes a "not to be missed" ( LitHub ) collection of eleven essays about growing up in Ireland during radical change; about cancer, priests, popes, homosexuality, and literature. " IT ALL STARTED WITH MY BALLS ." So begins Colm Tóibín's fabulously compelling essay, laced with humor, about his diagnosis and treatment for cancer. Tóibín survives, but he has entered, as he says, "the age of one ball." The second essay in this seductive collection is a memoir about growing up in the 1950s and '60s in the small town of Enniscorthy in County Wexford, the setting for many of Tóibín's novels and stories, including Brooklyn, The Blackwater Lightship , and Nora Webster . Tóibín describes his education by priests, several of whom were condemned years later for abuse. He writes about Irish history and literature, and about the long, tragic journey toward legal and social acceptance of homosexuality. In Part Two, Tóibín profiles three complex and vexing popes—John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. And in Part Three, he writes about a trio of authors who reckon with religion in their fiction. The final essay, "Alone in Venice," is a gorgeous account of Tóibín's journey, at the height of the pandemic, to the beloved city where he has set some of his most dazzling scenes. The streets, canals, churches, and museums were empty. He had them to himself, an experience both haunting and exhilarating. "A tantalizing glimpse into Tóibín's full fictional powers," ( The Sunday Times , London) A Guest at the Feast is both an intimate encounter with a supremely creative artist and a glorious celebration of writing.
Reviews
"For non-Catholics this collection of essays is a bit dense with dogma and may be a drudge report of Church dysfunction, but to the faithful, the lapsed, and the strident anti-Catholic public this collection of essays offers a greater understanding of history and how parishioner activism has changed the Church, if only a scintilla."
"Erudite essays from one of the world's finest writers."
"Tóibín's fans will relish these sharp reflections."
"Written with brutal clarity and flashes of humour, it encapsulates Tóibín as a whole, a master of light and shade."
"In what amounts to not much more than a long magazine article, he creates a sweeping, lyrical portrait of the small-town idiosyncrasies, natural landscapes and family histories in southeast Ireland on which his novels have drawn for three decades ..."
"Here, as throughout the collection, it is the droll, melancholy elegance of the prose that guarantees the reader's enjoyment."
"Tóibín's writing is what people these days inevitably describe as nuanced, a word that has become a kind of shorthand for expressing a person's rare ability to understand – or to try to understand – the foibles of others."
"A hallmark of Toíbín is his uncanny ability to deftly express the emotional undercurrent in his writing, be it loneliness, anger, or nostalgia."
"A Guest at the Feast is a collection that will remind readers of Tóibín's power as a writer of more than just memorable fiction."
"Tóibín's account of his battle with testicular cancer that spread to a lymph node and one lung is both revealing and laced with dark humor ..."
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