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Title details for Almost There by Nuala O'Faolain - Available

Almost There

The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman

by Nuala O'Faolain
Nuala O'Faolain
Audiobook
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1 of 1 copy available
In 1996, a small Irish press approached Nuala O'Faolain to publish a collection of her opinion columns from the Irish Times. She offered to write an introduction to explain the life experience that had shaped this Irish woman's views. Convinced that none but a few diehard fans of the columns would ever see the book, she took the opportunity to interrogate herself as to what she had made of her life.
But the introduction, the "accidental memoir of a Dublin woman," was discovered, and Are You Somebody? became an international bestseller. It launched a new life for its author at a time when she had long let go of expectations that anything new could dislodge patterns of regret and solitude, well fixed. Suddenly, in midlife, there was the possibility of radical change.
Almost There begins at that moment when O'Faolain's life began to change. It tells the story of a life in subtle, radical, and unforeseen renewal. It is a tale of good fortune chasing out bad — of an accidental harvest of happiness. But it is also a provocative examination of one woman's experience of the "crucible of middle age" — a time of life that faces in two directions, that forges the shape of the years to come, and also clarifies and solidifies one's relationships to friends and lovers (past and present), family and self.
Intelligent, thoughtful, hilarious, fierce, moving, generous, and full of surprises, Almost There is a crystalline reflection of a singular character, utterly engaged in life.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 1, 2003

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780743541251
      • File size: 222625 KB
      • Duration: 07:43:48

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In this brutally honest account of her life, O'Faolain reveals her introspections on her own existence. Losses and regrets are examined in detail as she untangles her thoughts about them. Her melodious voice lends a calming sense of catharsis as she shares her innermost feelings with her listeners. Writing is "clarifying the muddle in my head," she says, and the "therapeutic effects of autobiography" can be truly heard through her narration of her journey as woman and writer. As she floats from topic to topic, the listener is privy to details and minutiae that flesh out a whole person who has lived a full life. D.L.M. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 11, 2002
      A memoir may be a summing-up of a long, interesting life, or it can be a sort of self-examination so addictive the writer joins the ranks of the "serial memoirists." O'Faolain's a repeat offender, effectively rechewing material incompletely digested in her previous memoir, Are You Somebody?
      She opens by listing what she doesn't have, as she enters her mid-50s—someone to love, someone to love her, money, a workplace, a pension—but it's clear love is her biggest problem: "How have I ended up with nobody?" Her early boyfriends were apparently unremarkable, her 15-year relationship with "Nell" ended awfully and her subsequent affair with an elderly married man was mostly imagined. Toward the book's end, she's almost ditching her relationship with a divorced father, resenting his intimacy with his daughter. Her anger at her dysfunctional parents seethes throughout, culminating in a fantasy of joining her (now deceased) mother in a bar, and walking out just when Mom's ordered her a drink. By ending on that note, O'Faolain hints that her parents' lovelessness made it hard for her to love, an unsatisfying conclusion to such a nuanced account. Still, readers will enjoy O'Faolain for her witty turns of phrase: as an ex-smoker, she follows street smokers "to gulp their slipstreams," and she fears she's aging so badly she's "joining the rejects of the next-to-Last-Judgment." Her self-deprecation—so reminiscent of Jean Rhys—can be oddly comforting. (Feb. 24)Forecast:Irish writer O'Faolain's popularity in the U.S. (My Dream of You was a 2001
      New York Times Notable book and it, along with
      Are You Somebody?, hit bestseller lists) will help this book's sales. Expect St. Patrick's Day tie-ins.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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