The Ante-room (Virago Modern Classics)

By Kate O'Brien

Book Overview

It is the Eve of All Saints, 1880, and Teresa Mulqueen lies dying. Her family gathers round her, and beneath this sad scene another drama, no less poignant, unfolds. In this house of stillness and shadow, her daughter Agnes anxiously awaits the return of her sister Rose-Marie and brother-in-law Vincent. Agnes adores her sister, but secretly, passionately loves Vincent-and she knows their marriage is foundering. Ahead lies a terrible battle between her uncompromising religious faith and the intensity of her love.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140161988
• ISBN13: 9780140161984
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.0" x 1.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Relentless, depressing, fascinating

Kate O'Brien's parlor-set piece about a 19th Century Irish family at the time of the lingering death of the family's mother is spare and relentless. The author evokes through a series of character foils the conflicts between the 19th Century Irish Catholic milieu in which the characters exist and the very real and human passions that they develop at odds with their circumstances. The narrative voice is sympathetic, yet quick to point up the character flaws in each of the family members portrayed in this novel filled with misplaced passions and passionless near misses. Although this is a short novel, it is not a quick read. It instead is a patient, quiet, well-constructed but not particularly novel portrayal of the contrasts between life as we imagine it and life as it really is lived. I recommend the Ante-Room, but it is not for the impatient or faint of heart.

Three intense days in the life of an Irish family

I couldn't put it down! The book describes three days in an Irish household. Very atmospheric, and yet the writing is so easy and natural to read. There is unrequited love, and almost every other emotion it is possible to think of. Highly recomended