This Must Be the Place

Een Amerikaanse professor in de linguïstiek is onderweg om de as van zijn grootvader in Ierland op te halen als hij een mysterieuze, nogal geheimzinnige, vrouw tegenkomt (druk doende een lekke band te repareren). Zij blijkt een beroemde actrice die jaren geleden spoorloos verdwenen is.

Vanuit dit uitgangspunt springt O'Farrell vervolgens heen en weer in tijd en gezichtspunt, om uit te doeken te doen hoe dat zo gekomen is, en om de achtergronden van beiden langzaamaan steeds scherper te krijgen. Daniel die zijn gezin in de steek liet om naar Ierland te verhuizen, Claudette die op het hoogtepunt van haar roem haar echtgenoot en carriere in de steek laat.

Het voelt als een veel grotere roman dan Hamnet en The Marriage Portrait leken, maar ook dit eerdere werk is erg fijn om te lezen.

“My wife, I should tell you, is crazy. Not in a requiring-medication-and-wards-and-men-in-white-coats sense – although I sometimes wonder if there may have been times in her past – but in a subtle, more socially acceptable, less ostentatious way.“She puts her hand on my leg, just within the bounds of decency, and whispers, ‘I'll miss you.' As a linguist, it's a revelation to me the number of ways two adults can find to discuss sex without small children having the faintest idea what is being said.“ “I say ‘alone', when actually I was accompanied by my grandfather, who was sporting a small, taped cardboard box and occupied the passenger seat of the hire car. He and I got along very well, which was not quite how I remembered it when he was alive.“ “That's how you feed an infant, isn't it? They are supposed to bend in the middle somehow and use your body as a kind of chair but this one doesn't seem to bend. She is rigid, livid, stricken. Maeve has got herself a non-bending baby.“

Started out great. Then lost pace. Too many characters, each with their own chapters. In the end I forgot to read on.

The writing was beautiful and the characters were interesting but it added up to....what? I never understood what drew Daniel and Claudette together in the first place or got a good sense of their ten years of marriage, so I didn't have much of a stake in whether or not they got back together at the end. I'd almost give this four stars because it was so well-written, but I usually reserve four and five star reviews for authors I plan to follow in the future (or check on their backlist) and I don't have any burning desire to read any more books by Maggie O'Farrell. Just not my cup of Irish tea, I guess.