“There are so few truly wild places left, places where the night is so dark you can see the constellations, places that look the same as they must have looked thousands of years ago. Everything’s changing. So much that’s authentic is being lost. I want to remember this place as it was . . .”

Rainsongs focuses on Martha, a late-middle-aged but still youthful teacher, whose half-Irish art-critic husband has died suddenly. A tragedy two decades previous the death of the couple’s only child, ten-year-old Bruno, in a canoeing accident at a summer camp had haunted the pair, yet their relationship endured for thirty years. The story opens in the weeks after Brendan’s death, in late December 2007, the darkest time of the year. (The novel will close in June 2009 on the longest day of the year). Just before New Year’s, Martha travels to her husband’s cottage in Kerry, where he spent summers as a boy and chose to write as an adult. She wants to settle things in Ireland: clear out Brendan’s books and belongings and possibly sell the place. That shouldn’t be hard; the country is still experiencing an economic boom. However, it’s the first time Martha has been back to the cottage since the summer of the accident that changed everything, and memories are awakened. Unexpectedly affected by the savage beauty of the place and sympathetic to those who are trying to maintain the old ways, she finds herself strangely conflicted. Her original plans may need to be altered.

While staying at the cottage, Martha meets three of Brendan’s former acquaintances. There’s a childhood friend, Eugene O’Riordan, once a high-powered corporate lawyer, who’s transitioned into property development. His latest scheme is to buy out the last of the farmers and landholders (including Martha) and have an upscale spa built. Paddy O’Connell, a bachelor hill farmer in his sixties (who returned from Dublin years before to help maintain his father’s farm), is another who’s being pressured, and possibly harassed, by Eugene. Finally, there’s Colm, a young singer and poet, whose talents Brendan had encouraged. Colm also returned home to Kerry—in his case, after being away at university in Dublin. His father had died and the young man wished to support his mother’s efforts to keep the farm. The fifth generation to work the land, Colm finds that economic conditions are making it nearly impossible for small farmers to survive. He’s also “torn between what he really wants to do [write] and loyalty to his mother.” Martha observes that though Colm is young, “there’s something wise about him, about the way he experiences the world.” During her time in the cottage that Brendan inherited from his father’s people, and through her interaction with the three people familiar with her husband, she learns about sides of her spouse that she never knew.

It’s evident that Hubbard carried out a lot of research before writing this book, and it sometimes shows more than it ought to. Colm holds forth rather a lot, sometimes pretentiously and pedantically, on Irish culture and literature, the effect of the economic boom on a country unused to a seemingly endless flow of money, and the Disneyfied version of Ireland versus the real place. Hubbard also presents this character’s long internal-monologue critiques of his fellow countrymen, who know how to be emigrants but are uncertain about how to welcome new immigrants from Eastern Europe; about the ugly side of modern Ireland: “flagrant wealth on the one hand, social deprivation on the other”; and about the irony of a country that “makes a big deal of the family” yet sees increasing numbers of “young parents out at gigs on long drinking binges,” leaving their young children neglected at home. While interesting enough to read, the commentary feels forced, clunky—superimposed on the story rather than organic to it.

The author has clearly drawn on her own experience—both as a poet and an art critic— to create two of the five main characters. For the most part, all five (if we include Brendan) are credible and interesting. I was a bit fearful that the novel was going to devolve into a reworking of the marriage plot. Hubbard certainly flirts with the “two-or-more-suitors;who-will-she-choose?” device. Both Eugene and Colm are attracted to Martha. The older man represents a certain material success, fuelled by psychological wounds and unthinking greed; the younger is intelligent and spiritually connected to the land.

Rainsongs is essentially concerned with a central character’s coming to grips with change and the transformative power of the natural world and older, slower ways. There really isn’t much of a plot here. At times, the novel is a little heavy on historical and descriptive detail: almost every shop in a nearby town is described, for example. However, I was generally impressed with Hubbard’s sensitive prose. There are some beautiful descriptions of the land and sea, the wind and mist and birds that fly along the rugged Kerry coast in the vicinity of the Skellig islands, “a Christian refuge on . . . virgin crags.”

For this reason, I’ve rounded a solid 3.5 rating up to 4.
I preferred this novel over the author’s more recent Flatlands. ( )

Sue Hubbard’s wistful, lyrical novel Rainsongs describes the difficult passage toward healing of recently widowed Martha Cassidy. Martha has been devastated by the unexpected loss of her husband Brendan, an art critic and author, who died suddenly of a heart attack. Not given to excessive brooding or emotional theatrics, and fond of her privacy, Martha is quietly consumed by her grief. She and Brendan were married for thirty years. Without the steady presence of her husband she does maintain an even keel, but senses that below the surface she is unraveling. Part of her healing process involves a return to County Kerry on the west coast of Ireland, to the windswept cottage that in the early years of her marriage had been a family holiday spot, but latterly was used solely by Brendan as a writing sanctuary. Martha has not been there for twenty years, not since the accident that claimed the life of Bruno, the couple’s only son. Martha’s return to the cottage shortly after Christmas 2007—ostensibly a chance to sort Brendan’s books and papers and to consider her future—places her squarely and reluctantly in the midst of a land dispute. Local developer Eugene Riordan, a childhood friend of Brendan’s, has his eye on the rocky headland that juts into the sea for a fancy spa that will attract well-heeled Europeans and provide permanent employment for a few lucky locals. The building team will have to cross Martha’s property to access the construction site, and he pressures Martha to allow this. Most of the residents are weary of the isolation and harsh weather and are eager to sell up. The one holdout is Paddy O’Connell, who, in his sixties, stubbornly, stoically, defiantly, insists on maintaining a herd of cattle and working his farm’s stony earth as he has done all his life. Another person Martha encounters soon after her arrival is poet and musician Colm Nolan, son of the caretaker whom Brendan engaged to keep an eye on the cottage in his absence. Colm, about half Martha’s age, comes and goes at odd times, keeping Martha supplied with peat and other essentials, and she quickly finds herself warming to his friendly banter and charming, earthy intelligence. At the same time Martha is repelled by Eugene’s arrogance and only endures his company because of the connection with Brendan. Where the development is concerned, Martha’s sympathies lie with Paddy: she is horrified by Eugene’s plans to despoil the headland’s rough beauty simply to make money. But Martha’s state of mourning also leaves her vulnerable, and after agreeing to read Colm’s poetry manuscript the two become intimate. Sue Hubbard’s emotionally complex narrative explores the tensions between past and present, old and new. Like the land and people around her—perhaps like all of Ireland—Martha must decide: will she live on as a shadow of her former self, fixated on the past, stymied by her losses, or will she move forward and invent herself anew? Martha’s efforts to uncover the future that awaits her are hindered by memories of her husband and guilt over Bruno, but eventually she realizes that she can honour the past while at the same time not let it hold her back. The struggle she wages to attain this level of peace with herself is moving and achingly real. ( )

A wonderfully lyrical walk through the untamed south west coast of Ireland at the daily mercy of the wild unpredictable Atlantic ocean. Martha Cassidy has returned to the cottage that she and her deceased husband Brendan owned and spent many happy years. She is trying to finalize Brendan's affairs before deciding if she wishes to stay or sell the cottage. Through her eyes we meet unscrupulous property dealer Eugene Riordan eager to woo Martha as he is hoping to acquire her property for his future development plans.

Sue Hubbard uses the landscape as a descriptive backdrop to her flowing narrative style...."This is the end of the world with nothing between her and America except the cold sea"....."She's not religious. For her death is the end A soundless dark beyond time and sleep"....."Our lives are so hectic that not to be busy is considered a modern vice, evidence of inadequacy, proof that we're no longer important."......"to find a landscape to fit our dreams and disappointments. When there's nothing left there's still the ocean and the sky"....."Were they too, running from intimacy in order to avoid love's vulnerability"......There are a number of surprises that unfold as we delve deeper into Martha's regretful past, and a new acquaintance that she unexpectedly meets during her stay. Will she decide to remain or return to her old life in London. In the quiet moments of this breathtakingly beautiful location old memories return and with them a great sadness...A very enjoyable read that brought the beautiful location of Southern Ireland to life. Highly recommended. ( )

An absolutely beautiful yet melancholy rendering of time and place. An almost deserted villagee on the west coast of Ireland, a village overlooking the Skelligs, the huts, where monks onve lived in almost total deprivation. Beautifully described I could almost feel the constant mist, the wind on my face, the lonliness and the beauty entwined.

"As she heads towards the bay, the sea is calm, the surf white as a wedding dress, the brown mountains behind Waterville soft and undulating. It might almost be spring."

It is here Martha comes, to a cottage that belonged to her husband, she comes in grief at his death, but also to empty the place of his possessions. The Skelligs in their raw beauty, a sight that has a different meaning for Martha. The Celtic tiger has reared its head, new money and a way to make more consuming men, and a way of life that had endured centuries. A limited range of characters, each representing something different. Paddy, holding on to the old ways, Colm, who straddles both the old and new with his poetry, and his love for the land, way of life of his family.

"He climbs on through the window and dleet towards the tower, though there's too much mist for him to see the Skelligs. Ahead the sky and ocean merge in a grey veil that stretches away towards America. How he loves this place. The savsgery, the untamed wildness. Here on the edge of the land, the edge of Europe. He can feel it in his bones, the threads and connections running back through the centuries."

Then there is Eugene, a sort of Lord of the Manor type, who has grandiose plans for the land, some belonging to others. All will meet, and their meeting will effect each other in various ways. The past against the future, grief and healing, and a love for the land that can't be denied. Beautiful book, yes sad too but a truly amazing read.

ARC from Edelweiss. ( )

Rainsongs by Sue Hubbard is a highly recommended, beautifully written novel about loss, love, healing, and life.

After the death of her husband in December 2007, Martha Cassidy has returned to her husband's remote cottage where he went to write. It is near a tiny, remote village on the west coast of Ireland in County Kerry. Off the coast are the Skelligs, a group of barren islands occupied by monks in 520 AD. Once at the cottage, Martha sorts through her husband's belongings and reflects on her husband, his life, his infidelities, but she also finally grieves the loss twenty years earlier of 10 year-old Bruno, her only child and that he never got to take a boat trip to the Skelligs.

In this windswept headland, there are other contemporary outside forces that insert themselves into Martha's consciousness. A successful developer, Eugene Riordan, wants to buy up all the farmland on the coast and build a spa resort. Older local hill farmer Paddy O'Connell quietly refuses to sell to him and ends up injured under mysterious circumstances. Riordan also wants part of Martha's land but she manages to put him off. Martha also befriends local musician and poet, Colm, who doesn't want to lose the rural area's way of life.

The descriptions of the landscape and setting are exquisitely crafted and certainly show Hubbard's poetic turn of phrase. Beyond Martha, the beautiful, rugged landscape is truly a main character. The loss of a way of life and rural setting may have to be mourned if the farmland is sold and the development changes the area and the beauty of the remote area. The plot is quite simple and quiet.

Martha is a clear-headed woman dealing with more than a few memories, good and bad, and grieving her losses and what could have been. This is a lamentation of the loss of a husband and son. Martha must sort through memories as she sorts through things, and she must negotiate with her grief and feelings to set a course to her future. She is a well-developed character and we know her inner thoughts and musings as she does what she needs to do at the cottage in order to go on with her life. The other characters, beyond the landscape, are all more caricatures for several archetypal characters.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of The Overlook Press.
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