The Land of Women : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A Troubled Landscape
Review: Fiona O'Faolain is a troubled young woman, struggling with issues from her childhood, a difficult relationship with her mother Jane, and with her father Ronan, who never married her mother but flitted around the world always out of reach. And with Irish mythology. And with the mysteries of dress-making, working with cloth, with colors and textures. And with the haunting memories of her first love, Michael, her awakening, and the terrible way it ended. Now she is living in Santa Fe, lost as it were in haunting memories, and unable to pick up with her life.

That is the plot in a nutshell. The story weaves back and forth in time. It is written in an elevated "literary" style, long sentences laden with adjectives, intense descriptions of colors, odors, textures, fabrics and fastenings. It is as though the author were painting the scenes rather than writing them. Sometimes it becomes just a bit overdone, over-wrought. The young girl's emotions are portrayed, lived and relived, almost to hysteria.

Still, author McBride is a talented writer and she manages to make it work. Somehow she manages to bring together different worlds and cultures and characters to create a unified story. You may not grasp all the symbolism, at least not all at once, but you will enjoy the experience. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

Rating:
Summary: An exploration of myth and mystery¿
Review: In her second novel, McBride once again uses the lyrical imagery that so infused her first novel, The Nature of Water and Air, lifting the Land of Women into the realm of mythology. In a subtle exploration of romantic love, McBride also tackles the bonds between a mother and a daughter and how they determine lifelong affection or loss. Fiona remembers the scent of her mother, "the pale smells of her mother's skin and hair, a smell like new muslin washed in salt water and left to dry in the wind".

In the case of single mother Jane O'Faolin and her only daughter, Fiona, their early relationship is clearly a product of a lonely life in a beachside cottage and Jane's youth in a nearby orphanage. Yet their lives are filled with the bounty of nature and the wildness of the ocean, as Jane makes her living sewing exotic dresses for brides-to-be, pouring all her energy into these fantastic works of art. And Fiona has a similar talent, musing over the lush and sensual fabrics that so inspire her imagination. Sharing this creative gift allows mother and daughter another language, one that speaks in sensation and beauty, without words.

With only the occasional presence of a father, as a child, Fiona's primary relationship is with her mother. As years go by and Fiona emerges into young adulthood and sexual awareness, she discovers that the wild and moody Jane has feet of clay. Through her own selfishness and carelessness during this delicate time, Jane betrays her daughter and Fiona flees across the ocean to her father in New Mexico. There she lives among the muted shades of a desert landscape, yet haunted by the memories of Ireland.

When Fiona receives news of her mother's death, she is drawn back into the haunted a past she has so long denied. Thus, Fiona has ignored her own sexuality that has closed like a flower. Then Fiona meets Carlos Aragon and her latent sexuality reawakens. He muses about a place in Spain, Galicia, "where the terran changes to verdant green and the air is charged with salt from the sea, as a piece of Ireland has seeded in the shore of Spain". Carlos has an ancestor, once shipwrecked off the shores of Ireland, who was reputedly rescued by three women. From the mythological Land of Women, they loved him back to health. The returning sailor could never forget that love for the rest of his days, always longing for that love

Haunted by night after night of erotic dreams, Fiona must find a way to open her heart to her long repressed experiences as a young woman at the blush of first love. Exploring the truth of her own female power, Fiona is overwhelmed by intense feelings, as well as the warning behind the allure of this awakening: "Paradise costs; it cannot be entered recklessly". And Fiona has paid dearly for the heady rush into the secret places of romantic love.

With skillful narration, McBride smoothly blends Fiona's Irish memories with the Spanish flavor of New Mexico. Although Ireland is sea damp and mist shrouded, the thoughts that visit Fiona in the dry air of the desert are at home in this place, enhanced with cultural appreciation and nostalgia. Through Fiona and Jane's relationship, McBride explores the earliest bond between a mother and daughter and addresses the reluctance toward the changes wrought by the onset of maturity. The flowering of Fiona's sexuality is handled with delicacy and an elegant description of the young woman's response to her physical awakening. If Fiona can acknowledge the simple early adoration of her impetuous, needy mother, and the past may be put to rest. Unrealized childhood dreams are not easily relinquished, but this sensitive and sensual novel is a tribute to the nature of passion in the Land of Women. Luan Gaines/2003.