Book Group 1

The purpose of the groups is to read interesting books, decided upon by members, and then to discuss each book in the subsequent meeting.

This group meets on the 2nd Friday of every month at 2.00pm.

Meetings are held at members’ homes and there is a nominal charge of 30p for tea / coffee and biscuits.

This groups’ coordinator is Carolyn Davies who can be contacted by telephone on 01629 735493 or mobile 07976051762 .

A Good Read

Set in the late 60’s in rural Enniscorthy, County Wexford, a town in South East Ireland.
The novel opens shortly after the death of Maurice Webster, Nora’s husband of 21 years after a short illness. She has two older daughters who are studying elsewhere and Nora is at home with her two younger sons.

She has no savings, a small pension and lives in a small town where she has lived all her life and everyone seems to know everyone else’s business. She leads a very insular lifestyle. Nora grew up here, was educated here and worked in the offices of the local flour mill from when she left school until she married and had a family. She knows everyone and everyone knows her business and everyone knew her late husband who was a well-respected school teacher at the local secondary school.
The novel’s main theme is grief: Nora’s portrayal of her experience of depression after supporting Maurice, her husband, through his illness and death and her extreme loneliness and the burden of bringing up two sons without a father, particularly as they both attend the same school where he taught. She seems to be very worried by her one son’s stammer and is finding it hard to make any attempt to talk to the boys about their father and to try to help them to come to terms with their loss.
Throughout the novel she explores her own identity and begins to gain confidence in herself as a widow. She takes up her love of music again and begins having music lessons, starting to go to the town’s Music Society on her own. At first she is too intimidated to go anywhere on her own, such as going to mass as her emotions are too raw but eventually she begins to accept her status as a widow and gain confidence to accept invitations to go places on her own pursuing her own interests and gaining some independence as a widow. Throughout the novel she starts to imagine the different life she may have had, involved in making music and perhaps might not have shared with Maurice as her husband as she comes to terms with her widowhood by having singing lessons; joining a Choir and joining the Music Society.
As the novel progresses, she also starts to repaint her house realising that she has no one else to please to do this and that she is free to do this