This one might be good for me to read. I have a daughter and we constantly endure the power struggle although our love for each other runs deep!

This is a story about the intense relationships that can occur between mothers and daughters. From her hospital bed the elderly Dilly remembers her youthful journey to America, and her time spent working for a family in Brooklyn - a story similar to O'Brien's own mother's story. Now suffering from cancer, Dilly is concerned about her daughter, Eleanora, a writer, married to a controlling jealous man - again, in the same league as O'Brien's husband Ernest Gébler from whom she was divorced in 1968.

O'Brien's portrayal of Ireland in the early and mid-twentieth century is remarkably accurate. There were many young people who longed to go to America and like Dilly's experience, they were not happy journeys. In time she looks back on Brooklyn with affection. The letters Dilly received in New York from her mother are delightful in their candour. Her letters to her own daughter, Eleanora, are just as unfeigned but have more heartfelt strength of feeling. O'Brien's writing is lyrical, rhythmic at times, and filled with implicit emotion but how I wish her women were more confident. Not only do they leave unsaid all that should be said, but they are dominated by the worst of men. Without doubt this deserves top rating for writing. ( )

I love Irish writers for the most part, and I'd heard good things about O'Brien's work. Bought it. Tried to read it. Gave it to a friend. I simply lost interest about halfway through. I didn't care what happened, regardless of the fine prose style (I couldn't finish Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicles for the same reason -- I didn't care about what happened). As they say, only three words matter to a reader: MAKE ME CARE. ( )

Some parts gorgeous; others unclear. Decided not to finish even though I am interested in whether mother and daughter reconcile. But it feels like too much workl to find out.

Loved this passage:"Literature could either be a route out of life or into life and she could never be certain which except that she had succumbed." ( )

An interesting book, with a subject which was of interest to me: namely, mother-daughter relationships, especially as one approaches death.There were some sections which I liked, but overall I was a little disappointed. I thought O'Brien failed to really draw out the real nature of the mother's relationships and the reasons for them. I didn't feel a strong emotional connection with the characters...could it be my maleness? ( )