The South

'Night is coming down and there is a hum of noise from the street. I have been here for several weeks. I am grateful that the fat woman who runs this hotel and her little mouse of a husband do not speak English. I remain a mystery to them; they cannot get through to me. The man in the next room - as far as I can understand a word he says - goes to the opera every night and listens to opera on his radio all the time.' The South begins with Katherine Proctor's arrival in Barcelona in 1950. Drawn by her longing to be an artist, she has left her family behind in Ireland. In Spain, she meets Miguel, an anarchist veteran of the Civil War and together they embark on a new life. The past catches up with them. and Katherine is forced to question her relationship to her lover, to her painting, and to the other man she meets in Spain, Michael Graves, through whom she discovers an Ireland she never knew. In a prose that is both lyrical and direct, Colm Toibin convinces his readers that Katherine will reconcile her freedom and her need to paint. To classical themes, he brings a new, passionate sensitivity.

Paperback. English. Serpent's Tail. 1990. Good Condition.