by Colm Tóibín
First published 2005
Helen receives the call that changes everything. Her brother Declan is dying of AIDS, and she must return to the Irish coast where three generations of estranged women wait. Helen joins her mother Lily and grandmother Dora in a house that holds decades of unspoken grievances and buried pain. Declan arrives with his two close friends, creating an unlikely group of six people forced into intimacy by impending loss. The women who have barely spoken for years must now share meals, memories, and the weight of watching Declan fade. Old arguments surface alongside moments of unexpected tenderness. Helen discovers stories about her family she never knew, while her mother and grandmother confront their own failures and regrets. As Declan weakens, the barriers between them begin to crumble. This Booker Prize shortlisted novel reveals how death can force a reckoning with love, forgiveness, and the stories families tell themselves to survive.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, lgbt, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: estranged-family, found-family
Setting: Ireland
Period: 20th-century
288 pages · Paperback · Scribner
Content warnings: death, terminal-illness