Synopses & Reviews
What gives a life meaning? How is love found? Nuala O’Faolain, noted Irish Times columnist, took on these questions with striking intimacy and candor in her bestselling and acclaimed memoir, Are You Somebody? Hailed as "a beautiful exploration of human loneliness and happiness, of contentment and longing" (Alice McDermott, The Washington Post), the book struck a chord with legions of readers on both sides of the Atlantic and became a #1 New York Times bestseller. My Dream of You followed her memoir’s path, hitting bestseller lists around the world and confirming O’Faolain’s remarkable gifts as a writer.
Set in Ireland and spanning a century and a half, My Dream of You unfolds the compelling stories of two women and their quests for passion, connection, and fulfillment. On the brink of fifty, Kathleen de Burca is looking back at her life and asking questions about her choices. A globetrotting staff writer for the London-based TravelWrite syndicate for more than twenty years, she is used to livingand lovingon the run. Since the age of twenty-three, when she betrayed her first meaningful intimate relationship, she has had a steady succession of brief encounters, which have become less satisfying and more humiliating with each passing year. After a quick round of blowsculminating with the sudden death of her cherished colleague and closest friendKathleen decides to leave her job and rethink her life. Intrigued by a divorce case dating back to the days of the Potato Famine, she decides to try her hand at writing about it. The case, called "The Talbot Affair," detailed the clandestine liaison lasting three years between the wife of a British landlord and an Irish servant in Ireland in the 1850s. After a bitter thirty-year absence, Kathleen returns to Ireland, the land of her troubled childhood and turbulent heritage, in search of answers to her questions about desire and lasting love.
A contemporary story wrapped around an actual event, both equally gripping, My Dream of You is rich in timeless and relevant truths about adversity and human nature, passion and true love. Having created two complex, deeply feeling women at the mercy of their times and circumstances, and forced to make difficult choices, Nuala O’Faolain proves she is as gifted and powerful a weaver of fiction as she is an observer and chronicler of real life.
Review
“A grand achievement in storytelling… A lovely heartbreaker of
Review
“A grand achievement in storytelling… A lovely heartbreaker of a novel that asks the hard questions.”—
USA Today
“Ingeniously explores the consuming power of both passion and the past.”—Entertainment Weekly
“What a pleasure it is to be able to open a book and relax into the flow of a beautifully written narrative…With an ambling, intimate candor, OFaolain tells Kathleens story, present and past…And always, of course, behind everything is Ireland itself—beautiful, maddening Ireland.”—Lynn Freed, Washington Post Book World
“A big, generous, essentially old-fashioned novel, taking its unhurried time to tell a story and create a central character, to have a cool, long look at history and romance…There is tenderness here, and humanity, and a persuasive account of what happens when a person allows the world to enter into her once more.”—Catherine Lockerbie, The New York Times Book Review
“OFaolain is] a readers writer, with a flair for straightforward, Dickensian storytelling.”—Meghan ORourke, Vogue
“Full of brilliant writing and heartbreaking insight…Unlike all but the best writers, OFaolain isnt afraid to write about a character as smart and complicated as she is.”—Malcolm Jones, Newsweek
“A smart and crisply written book, tinged with sadness…Kathleens journey back to one of Irelands humbler backwaters after a fashionable life as a near-English traveling journalist is fraught with emotion and politics. Indeed, one of the achievements of this lovely, haunting, and intelligent novel is demonstrating how tightly these elements are linked in the modern Irish - not only in the manner that makes international news, but at the levels that give color and shape to an individuals everyday life.”—Vince Passaro, Elle
“What keeps you engrossed is the fact that the novel interweaves the contemporary bits…with an irresistible mystery…I cant remember the last time I read a novel that so eloquently describes the erotic dilemma of middle age—the way that hunger for sexual and emotional satisfaction, unabated by time, intersects with a shocked recognition that the body itself changes, or even fails…It is [OFaolains] journalistic eye for detail that etches Kathleens dilemma into your memory.”—Daniel Mendelsohn, New York
Synopsis
This compelling novel by Nuala O'Faolain intertwines the stories of two women, an Irish travel writer living in present-day London, and a British landowner's wife during the 19th century potato famine, who was convicted of committing adultery with an Irish groom.
"A lovely heartbreaker of a novel that asks the hard questions...O'Faolain writes beautifully about longing and regret." (USA Today)
"We often hail the virtuosic performance of a talented new 'writer's writer,' but O'Faolain may be a rarer thing in today's age of irony: a reader's writer, with a flair for straightforward, Dickensian storytelling." (Vogue)
"One of the finest achievements of the book is its unflinching, empathetic depiction of just how it feels...to experience the chill clutch of the thought that the rest of one's life might be empty of love, sex, intimate human contact...a fully rendered portrait." (The New York Times Book Review)
Synopsis
A New York Times notable book and bestseller, this debut novel from Irish Times columnist Nuala O'Faolain takes on life and love with Dickensian flair and the striking intimacy that characterized her bestselling and acclaimed memoir, Are You Somebody?
Set in Ireland and spanning a century and a half, My Dream of You unfolds the compelling stories of two women and their quests for passion, connection, and fulfillment. A globetrotting Irish travel writer, Kathleen de Burca is used to livingand lovingon the run. On the brink of fifty, she decides to leave her job and rethink her life. Intrigued by a divorce case dating back to the days of the Potato Famine, she tries hand at writing about it. The case, called "The Talbot Affair," detailed the clandestine liaison between the wife of a British landlord and an Irish servant in Ireland in the 1850s. After a bitter thirty-year absence, Kathleen returns to Ireland, the land of her troubled childhood and turbulent heritage, in search of answers to her questions about desire and lasting love.
About the Author
Nuala O'Faolainis a columnist withThe Irish Times and the author of Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman. She lives in Dublin and County Clare. My Dream of You is her first novel.