Kirkus, April 15, 2003
...well-crafted and elegant...
Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 25, 2003
youthful, wistful, helpless and lusty...reminding us of all those things we depend upon Irish writers to remind us of
Washington Post Book World, June 15, 2003
This is a literary novel, alluring in its language and artistry.
Elle, June, 2003
Sensuous attention to detail and rhythmic prose...McBride pays tribute to history, heritage, and distances traveled in search of home.
Review
Library Journal A story of love and betrayal...Fiona tells the story of her strange and magical relationship with her mother....Irish folklore [adds] more enchantment to an already intriguing tale.
Book Description
Akin to Alice McDermott, Regina McBride has crafted a gem that explores exile and memory, and the ways in which passion transcends time and distance. She tries to remember her mother's voice and the pitch and treble of it passes through her; the rhythm of it so clear that for a moment they are...connected by frail strings. So begins The Land of Women, and we are swept into Fiona O'Faolain's last summer in Ireland, the season of her burgeoning sexuality. It is a time, too, when mother and daughter step toward friendship among the voluminous gowns they make for local brides. Yet that giddy summer also delivers betrayal. Fiona's journey from the shame that ended her girlhood takes her to Santa Fe and to Carlos Aragon, a restorer of antiquities, whose ancestry is mysteriously linked to hers. As he explores their pasts with the precision of an artisan, Fiona must face her excruciating memory. In The Land of Women the past lives in the present, and physical and emotional geography touch.
Download Description
"Akin to Alice McDermott, Regina McBride has crafted a gem that explores exile and memory, and the ways in which passion transcends time and distance. She tries to remember her mother's voice and the pitch and treble of it passes through her; the rhythm of it so clear that for a moment they are...connected by frail strings. So begins The Land of Women, and we are swept into Fiona O'Faolain's last summer in Ireland, the season of her burgeoning sexuality. It is a time, too, when mother and daughter step toward friendship among the voluminous gowns they make for local brides. Yet that giddy summer also delivers betrayal. Fiona's journey from the shame that ended her girlhood takes her to Santa Fe and to Carlos Aragon, a restorer of antiquities, whose ancestry is mysteriously linked to hers. As he explores their pasts with the precision of an artisan, Fiona must face her excruciating memory. In The Land of Women the past lives in the present, and physical and emotional geography touch. "
About the Author
Regina McBride is writing the screenplay of her first novel, The Nature of Water and Air. She lives in New York City.
The Land of Women FROM THE PUBLISHER
In The Land of Women we are swept into Fiona O'Faolain's last summer in Ireland, the season of her burgeoning sexuality. It is a time, too, when mother and daughter step toward friendship among the voluminous gowns they make for local brides. Yet that giddy summer also delivers betrayal. Fiona's journey from the shame that ended her girlhood takes her to Santa Fe and to Carlos Aragon, a restorer of antiquities, whose ancestry is mysteriously linked to hers. As he explores their pasts with the precision of an artisan, Fiona must face her excruciating memory.
FROM THE CRITICS
The Washington Post
The Land of Women narrowly avoids the woman-as-victim story by granting Fiona a string of believable epiphanies resulting in self-knowledge that is neither hollow nor transitory. — Carol S. Briggs
Library Journal
McBride is now working on the screenplay of her first novel, The Nature of Water and Air, with actor Gabriel Byrne, who will direct and star in the film. Lucky for us she had time to write her second novel, a story of love and betrayal set on the coast of Ireland with a little bit of New Mexico thrown into the mix. Fiona O'Faolain tells the story of her strange and magical relationship with her mother, Jane, an orphan raised by nuns. After Jane betrays her trust and affection, Fiona flees to New Mexico to live with her father, a rogue who never married Jane and became a famous photographer. In Santa Fe, Fiona meets an antiques restorer named Carlos, whose passion is tracing the historical connection between Ireland and Spain in the objects that he restores. The ever-changing history and geography behind this link is fascinating, and the resulting story helps Fiona come to terms with her past. As in her previous novel, McBride weaves in a bit of Irish folklore, adding more enchantment to an already intriguing tale. For all literary fiction collections.-Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A somewhat heavy-handed second from Irish-American McBride (The Nature of Water and Air, 2001). When Fiona O'Faolain moved from rural Ireland to Santa Fe, New Mexico, it wasn't so much to get ahead in the world as to find out who she was. An illegitimate child, Fiona was fathered by a well-known photographer who had come to the American Southwest years before and made his reputation there. Although he helped support Fiona and her mother, Jane, while Fiona was a girl, he never married Jane-thus condemning her to the status of eccentric outsider in the rural village where she and Fiona lived. A gifted seamstress and lacemaker, Jane made a living by creating wedding dresses, and each masterwork only reinforced her disappointment at never becoming Ronan's bride-to such an extent that she eventually married the dull Ned McGinty, who had been deeply in love with Jane for years. When Ronan dies and leaves part of his estate to Fiona, she moves to Santa Fe to open a dress shop of her own. There, she meets Carlos Aragon, a Spanish antiquities dealer who is restoring a 15th-century statue that had been carved to commemorate a ship that sank off the coast of Ireland with one of his ancestors aboard. According to family legend, Carlos's ancestor had been rescued by a trio of women and literally nursed back to health on a remote island known as the Land of Women. As Carlos delves deeper into the mysteries of the statue and the doomed ship, Fiona's thoughts turn back to her native land-and to Michael, her first love. Moving along the romancer's boundary between anger and nostalgia, Fiona's story is, overall, well crafted and elegant, though it becomes a bit overdone and precious in the end. Agent:Regula Noetzli
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
McBride is now working on the screen-play of her first novel, The Nature of Water and Air, with actor Gabriel Byrne, who will direct and star in the film. Lucky for us she had time to write her second novel, a story of love and betrayal set on the coast of Ireland with a little bit of New Mexico thrown into the mix. Fiona O'Faolain tells the story of her strange and magical relationship with her mother, Jane, an orphan raised by nuns. After Jane betrays her trust
and affection, Fiona flees to New Mexico to live with her father, a rogue who never married Jane and became a famous photographer. In Santa Fe, Fiona meets an antiques restorer named Carlos, whose passion is tracing the historical connection between Ireland and Spain in the objects he restores. The ever-changing history and
geography behind this link is fascinating, and the story that results helps Fiona comes to terms with her past. As in her
previous novel, McBride weaves in a bit of Irish folklore, adding more enchantment to an already intriguing tale. For all literary fiction collections. — Beth Gibbs
Art & Photography
Book Info
