| Date: 11 April 2011, 13:44
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In his distinctly Irish novel, set in County Sligo and Roscommon, a mental institution, a perhaps century old woman, Roseanne Cleary McNulty, pens a diary of her long life, which she hides in her room under the floorboards. Retrieving the notebook only when it's safe, Roseanne reveals a deeply loving relationship with a father who dies far too young and a mother who withdraws over time into the solitude of a troubled mind. Presbyterians, the Cleary's are an anomaly in Catholic Sligo, Joe Cleary dominating the landscape of his daughter's formative years. Reeling from his death and her mother's complete disinterest in the world around her, Roseanne is a naive young woman, unprepared for what awaits, falling quickly in love with Tom McNulty. Tom and his brothers, and their domineering mother are the faces of the stubborn, loyal Irish rebels who spend their years fighting for independence, closing ranks against outsiders.
Much at work in Roseanne's life is a priest, Father Gaunt, a man invested in his own arrogance and misogyny, who visits his hatred and mistrust of women on the innocent Roseanne. It is through Gaunt's efforts that Roseanne's marriage to Tom is ruined, no one of consequence to protect the girl, left staggering at the blows fate has dealt. Having been institutionalized for over half her life at the time she writes her memoirs, the remarkable thing about this character, as so beautifully rendered by Barry, is her inherent generosity of spirit and disinclination to harsh judgment of those who have wronged her. And while Roseanne is writing of her father and her marriage, Dr. Grene is charged with determining the future placement of his patient, Roscommon soon to be vacated and completely demolished. Unwilling to interrogate a woman whose face still carries the remnants of her exceptional beauty, Grene becomes fascinated by the small details he uncovers, hints that the truth may differ from Roseanne's recollection of her past.
Alternating these two stories (Dr. Grene beset by a terrible personal loss while investigating Roseanne's life), the author reveals an Ireland in turmoil, a beautiful woman caught up in a family enacting their part of that troubled history, cast out by the venality of a priest. It is Roseanne's great tragedy that her striking beauty is wielded as a sword to annihilate her world, her fond recollections of father and husband- at least for a time- the only buffer against the cruelty of the world. Roseanne's story is important because it is her voice, among many, that speaks to the plight of women ill-used by a hypocritically moral society and a Catholic church that has the power to ruin a life with one harsh judgment. Barry delivers an extraordinarily dear character in Roseanne and an empathetic doctor in Grene, setting the stage for a denouement that weaves these two lives intimately together, each in need of solace: "There is something greater than judgment. I think it is called mercy."
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