The last thing Colm Tóibín does every night in New York before turning in is read the Irish Times: “There’s really nothing I don’t know about what’s going on in Ireland,” he says. Superficially at least, there is much more going on in House of Names, in which the bodies pile up from the start. If this strips the book of more immediate pleasures, it is designed to mirror the traumatised state of Orestes. Tóibín quotes something Thomas Mann’s daughter Elisabeth said – “that by 30, you had a duty not to blame anyone for anything” – and laughs. Photograph: Allstar/LionsgateIt was the writer John McGahern who reassured Tóibín he could write about the same things over and over.

Source: The Guardian March 30, 2018 11:00 UTC