Graham Norton (1)Rezensionen

Elizabeth Keane, a university professor in New York City, returns to Ireland, her native land, to take care of financial and practical matters after the death of her mother. In a box in a closet, hidden under a duvet, Elizabeth finds love letters written to her mother by a man named Edward Foley, of whom she has never heard. Raised by a single mother who kept mum about her male parent, Elizabeth realizes quickly that she has found her father, a farmer, who lives many hours' drive away.

And so the tale begins. It is a twisting, winding tale, little shocks and big surprises thrown in to an outwardly-seeming peaceful and rustic yarn. There is a side-story as well, of Elizabeth's 17-year old son and his missteps and secrets that lead to a whole new life opening up for Elizabeth.

I really enjoyed this book. In order to get it finished before bedtime, I skipped a hot dinner and opted for a sandwich; forwent a post-prandial walk in the bracing cold of a Canadian January, and put all thoughts aside of the thriller I'm watching on Netflix. It was well worth the little sacrifices. I liked Graham Norton's first novel, Holding, and A Keeper was even better. I hope he keeps writing; I'd love to read more of his novels.

Two years ago I found The Graham Norton Show on YouTube, and watched all the episodes and compilations and "best ofs" that I could find. When I discovered that Mr. Norton had written a novel, I bought it eagerly. Then it fell behind other books on my overloaded bookshelf and it was forgotten until a few weeks back when I decided to clear out the aforementioned shelves.

I don't know what I was expecting, but Holding is a lovely little book. Full of warmth and love for his Irish homeland, the book made me long for a plane ticket and a car to drive around the Emerald Isle. I spent a day in Dublin once, but I've not seen the countryside, at least I hadn't until I read this story.

Sergeant PJ Collins is stationed in Duneen, a small community in which nothing really happens, and where his job consists of directing traffic, and giving out speeding tickets. PJ is obese and horribly self-conscious. He's never had a wife or a family and he is lonely. Some new houses are being built just outside the village and a body of a young male is found. Some months later the body of an infant is found nearby. Suddenly PJ has a lot to do, and he learns that he can do it well. He also learns that despite his self-hatred that there are women who find him attractive, and so his confidence in his job and in his personal life soars.

Of course there are lots of twists and turns in the plot, some of them quite shocking, and I found myself impressed by how deft a hand Norton has at writing mysteries. More than anything he writes about people, and the events just tumble into one another as they do in real life. The book made me smile, and in one spot I teared up. It's a very good debut novel, and I know that there are two more, which I will also seek out.

A strong little sleepy village mystery novel.

Yikes. What could have been a solid little mystery was buried under unnecessary fluff. A small Irish town full of dull, terrible, sexually repressed people is jostled by the discovery of some human remains. I could’ve lived my whole life and not had Graham Norton read… things to me. I’ll never be the same.

You will note that this is the second time I have read this novel. My earlier review is here ( I first read it about 3 years ago)

This time I am reading it for discussion with my U3A Crime Fiction group. This is the first book we are reading this year, and I think they will enjoy it.

We will be basing some of our discussion on some questions listed at The Reading Agency (listed on Amazon)

Duneen is a quiet place, far enough from the big towns to have kept its own rhythms. Its residents include cast down policeman PJ who lives a lonely, uneventful life punctuated only by the next meal – until now; the beautiful and mysterious family of three spinster sisters each with their own secrets and
sorrows; and of course, the town's gossip who think she knows the answers. When a grim discovery is made on a building site up by the old school, it becomes the catalyst for half lived secrets and seething rivalries to come to light and this silent, once innocent and repressed-seeming town is revealed to have
a much darker, hungrier undertow

The other resources that I've found which we may use in our discussion are some short You Tube videos:

Graham Norton reading an extract
Character introduction : Evelyn Ross

Both of these videos comment on the significance of the novel's title.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

4.6, HOME STRETCH½

Right from the start I was hooked on this book and read it quite quickly despite the busyness of the season. Characters, setting, and of course the unfolding of their lives and their secrets was all very enjoyable. A good first novel.

Graham Norton is one of those folks from the UK who seems able to turn his hand to anything. I’ve long been a fan of his talk show- he is a genius at putting even balky Americans at ease and he exudes good nature. So when I heard he’d written several books (his first, Holding, a prize winner) I knew I’d have to read them.
This was unexpected. Extremely well-written, which I did expect, but dark in a truly creepy way.
I don’t want to get too much into the plot for fear of spoiling it, but suffice to say, isolated areas near moors are involved, plus a cast of seriously sad and disturbed people. It all starts out seeming like a nice generational story, but as it goes on and the fibres get tangled about, the fog rolls in and suddenly you find yourself in a gothic horror.
Expertly switching between present and past keeps things pulling you along, until the final, somewhat rushed, ending.
A fun ride and it kept me up well past my bedtime to get to the end.
It’s high residue, too- the location is one that sticks in your head and I can almost feel the damp seeping from the walls, the despair in the wallpaper…
I did get the feeling the ending was squashed in as if the author was racing to finish the tale but I can understand the impulse as the reader races on, too.
Well worth a read and now I shall have to go read his others. Such a clever fellow and my goodness he is full of energy. Like Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, someone I would like at my ideal dinner table.

The day before a wedding in a small Cork town in the late 1980s, an awful car crash kills three people, including the bride and groom. Graham Norton's novel Home Stretch follows the lives of their families over the next 30 years and how the crash affects them. The plotting is sentimental and clumsy, and Norton would have benefited from at least one more editing pass focusing on segues between scenes/POVs. (Plus, there is at least one big plot hole, aside from any of the unlikely coincidences: how, with a conviction for dangerous driving causing death, was Connor able to get a U.S. visa? Even if he was able to get a waiver, surely that would have been a lengthy and involved enough process that his then-partner would have had to find out about what had happened?)

Despite these issues, this was a quick and engrossing read. Norton's prose is smoothly readable, and he has an ear for authentic-sounding dialogue and an eye for a telling detail of person or place. There is heart to the book, especially when it comes to reflections on what it's like to be queer in the Ireland of the late 2010s vs the 1980s. If you're looking for a somewhat grounded yet undemanding work of contemporary Irish fiction, I'd recommend this.

Consider this 3.5 stars because of Norton's ability to make me fly through a book in just over three hours even when sleep-deprived in a waiting room.½

Engaging story of secrets and identity and finding out who you really are where nothing is as you might expect. Personally I found Norton's first book much more interesting but this definitely held my attention in wanting to find out what would happen!

Ok I know you told me not to waste my time, but I wasted my time. I won't bother with a review, here are my few notes:
Was this ghost-written? Poorly plotted and ridiculous. Melodrama without the good bits. Far too casual a treatment of pedophilia. Troubling portrayal of women.

Not what I would have imagined (good or bad) based on enjoying Norton's show. A funny, insightful story in a charming voice.

Holding: a Novel by Graham Norton.
This is a debut novel by Mr. Norton published in 2016.
Mr. Norton is a very successful Irish actor, comedian, tv talk-show host and commentator and award-winning author.
I remember Mr. Norton from a years and years ago segment of Father Ted!
Holding is a very well-written, very atmospheric, comedic at times, story taking place in a tiny, obscure village in County Cork, Ireland.
Like many small, somewhat isolated communities, there are bubbling undercurrents of resentment, jealousy, sadness, anger, lost chances, regret and secrets just below the surface. Lots and lots of secrets.
Although main character P.J. Collins is a local Garda, I wouldn’t label this a police drama or mystery or detective story. It is a human interest story, very personal.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. ****

Duneen is at the very bottom of the south of Ireland. There are no big dramas here, yet the people in Duneen could be a little happier. Sergent PJ Collins wasn't always so outrageously fat that everyone made fun of him. Brid Riordan didn't use to indulge in alcohol. Evely Ross once hoped to find meaning in life someday. The other residents of Duneen awaken from their slumber with wild speculation, gossip when bones are found one day at Burke Farm.
Old wounds open and old lies come to light, new conflicts flare up as PJ tries to solve his first real case. No one would put it past him and he surprises himself the most.
There is a quiet and fine way in which this mystery is written, a kind of drama between humour and gloom with a lot of love for the protagonists.½

I really enjoyed this and for once a novel by a 'tv personality ' where I didn't hear their voice. I would certainly read future novels by him.

*** I would like to thank Netgalley for the opportunity to review a free advance copy of this book ***

TV host Graham Norton makes a very creditable fist of his first novel, a bucolic mystery set in the tiny Irish town of Duneen. His hero PJ is an overweight, hopeless member of the Guardia who is the sole cop in the town. When some human bones are found on a nearby building site, PJ is very quickly in over his head, both with his dearth of policing skills and with the long-buried village animosities the find also unearths.

PJ's investigation sees him bouncing between the forbidding trio of Ross spinsters and the town drunk Brid Riordan, to untangle a long-past love triangle with a farm boy, and discern its bearing on the case. There are a couple of clever twists to the plot, but it is a bit Midsomer-y. PJ's success with the ladies is also a little bit hard to credit.

PJ reminded me a bit of Brendan Gleeson's character in the film The Guard, but that's no bad thing. He's an amiable character with enough rough edges to sustain interest should Norton elect to do a sequel.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book xx
I’ll be honest. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw that the man I have loved watching on television for years and has made me laugh so much, had written a book.

Why on earth had I worried, this really was a great book and I swear I had Graham reading it to me over my shoulder as I could imagine him speaking in every word I read.

I love Duneen, its quaint and has some wonderful characters. I loved the Miss Marple type of story with humour. This was a Sunday afternoon quick read for me as I needed to know who did what to whom and when.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book xx
I’ll be honest. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw that the man I have loved watching on television for years and has made me laugh so much, had written a book.

Why on earth had I worried, this really was a great book and I swear I had Graham reading it to me over my shoulder as I could imagine him speaking in every word I read.

I love Duneen, its quaint and has some wonderful characters. I loved the Miss Marple type of story with humour. This was a Sunday afternoon quick read for me as I needed to know who did what to whom and when.

Not as good as his others. Unbelievable plot½

A Keeper. Graham Norton. 2018. Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland to settle her mother’s estate, and her son goes to California to visit his father. Since she knows nothing about her father, she wants son to know his. She finds a box of letters in her mother’s closet-letters that indicate her mother met a Edward Foley from West Cork through a personal ad. Later, at the reading of the will, Elizabeth learns she has been left a house in West Cork. She goes to West Cork and learns who her parents were and what sort of life they had. At the same time she is dealing with her son and his problems which have some parallels to her story. Readable but somewhat far-fetched. Lots of plot but also lots of unnecessary details.½

Ehh. A complicated story not told really well. Descriptions of unpleasantness went on far too long. Or, descriptions of everything went on far too long, by the end, you feel imprisoned by the author.

They say you can't pick your family. How true that is.

Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after the death of her mother and finds out that her family history is a far cry from what she believed. A Keeper is a story about a young woman looking for love, who winds up a prisoner and her struggle for freedom with a baby who is not hers.

After her divorce, teacher Carol finds love again with Declan and moves into his lovely townhouse in the small town of Ballytoor. However Declan develops dementia and his adult children place him in a home and evict Carol as they sell the beloved house. Luckily Carol has parents willing to buy the house for her but a mysterious smell leads to a shocking discovery. How is this linked to the disappearance of Declan's wife many years ago?
National Treasure Graham Norton has produced another depiction of small-town life in rural Ireland which does have a few teeth. Despite the plot twists and actions of the characters the pace is gently and the narrative never seems to be more than soft. There are lots of themes touched on here so the reader is challenged but it almost seems to be incidental to a great story.

From the 1980s to the mid 2010s, this is the story of Connor, a teenage Irish boy who is asked along to the beach by a group of older teens. On the way home an accident and several of the youth are killed, one a girl the day before her wedding.

Connor is blamed for the crash, but was he driving the car?

Over the decades we follow Connor's life as he totally seperates himself from his former life in Ireland.

Norton's writing is superb, and listening to him read the novel is wonderful.

An enjoyable romp through the life of a very funny man.

I really like Norton’s style of contemporary Irish fiction. It’s relatable and avoids being twee.