Molly Fox's Birthday

Isn't it amazing how we can have life-long close friendships with people we don't know at all. Not our closest 500 internet friends. Rather, think of the friend who has a lake house that you not only have never been invited to, but that you aren't even aware of. How many of us think that friendships have rules? How many friendships develop, though, based on the rules unilaterally determined by only one of the two? And, once realized, does that thought, and hurt, occur only to the one who didn't set the rules? And, how many friends do we introduce, only for them to be closer friends to one another than either is to us? And which of our three main characters; Molly, Andrew, and our nameless narrator, fills which types of friends' role? I don't know if this is best described as a-day-in-the-life-of or a-life-in-the-day-of story. Either way we get to spend three lifetimes in less than three hundred pages. Madden's writing is so good that it doesn't get in the way of the story. If you like character studies, grab this and read it slowly. This goes well with chocolates and a cuppa.

If you love reading the great Irish storytellers and count it a good day every time you discover a new one... If the thought of Gretta Conroy remembering Michael Fuery in James Joyce's "The Dead" always makes you sad... If sometime in your youth or childhood you looked at the life you were born to and knew without question or pause that it was not the life you were meant to live...then this is a novel I think you were probably meant to read. It's the story of three Irish arts majors who met in college and became best friends just as they were making the first tentative moves toward pursuing the lives they'd long dreamt of. Now, some 20 years later, they're each at the pinnacle of their professions--our unnamed narrator as a playwright, Molly an actor, and Andrew an art critic--still each others' closest friends, even though they don't see each other anywhere near as often as they'd like. While Molly is away in New York, the narrator has borrowed the actress's Dublin home to begin work on a new play. Over the course of a day of unexpected visitors, unrelenting writer's block and 220 chapterless pages, she'll revisit the major milestones and other memorable moments of the friendship, along the way reconsidering, reinterpreting and gradually beginning to question whether the three friends really know each other anywhere near as well as they've taken for granted they do. I'm dumbfounded that this lovely Orange Prize finalist seems to have never been published in a hardcover edition--not even in the UK. If ever it is I'll surely buy a copy.

In this contemporary but timeless novel about relationships, identity, and home, Madden embraces the acting and playwright professions as central to the exploration of the human condition. The unnamed narrator, a successful playwright originally from Northern Ireland, is staying in Dublin at Molly Fox's house while Molly is in New York. Molly is a celebrated stage actress, a woman who seems mousy and nondescript in person but is charged with charisma on-stage. Moreover, she has a bewitching voice. "At times it is infused with a slight ache, a breaking quality.... " and ..."both a visual and sensuous quality, an ability to summon up the image of the thing that the word stands for." Molly and said narrator have been best friends for twenty years. As the narrator struggles with writer's block during her visit, she traces Molly's steps through the house, fingers her treasures, sits in her garden, and recounts their friendship. Her memories includes their mutual friend Andrew, a successful TV art historian, specializing in memorials; Fergus, Molly's troubled brother; and Tom, the narrator's devoted brother--a Catholic priest who is also a dear friend to Molly. The day in question is June 21st, Molly's birthday, a date of penetrating significance that unfolds gradually through the narrative. Molly, Andrew, and the narrator have built firm and lucrative careers. Each has shed their native skin and taken on new identities that, paradoxically, manifest a more palpable singularity and congruity of self. Whether it is escaping traditional familial bonds or facilitating a triumph in artistic pursuits, the three friends have remained a touchstone for each other. Molly is the enigmatic force; Andrew is the medium of transformation; and the narrator relates through acute examination. "The closer you get to Molly, " thinks the narrator, "the more she seems to recede. Sometimes she seems to me like a figure in a painting, the true likeness of a woman, but as you approach the canvas the image breaks up, becomes fragmented into the colours, the brushstrokes and the daubs of paint from which the thing itself is constructed." For Molly, the actor, the stage is a point of departure; for the playwright, it is a final destination. The narrator's musings often settle on Andrew, whose brother was a paramilitary Loyalist in the North and a poignant source of Andrew's pain. A dissection ensues in the narrator's mind as she digs into the deepest interstices of her psyche. She fuses the artifice of stage with the authenticity of life, recalling how an actor can be removed from the stage or a person can depart from your life but leave a resounding presence. "Sometimes the most important and powerful element is an absence, a lack, a burnished space in your mind that glows and aches as you try to fill it." As several visitors drop by at the end of the day, surprised to find Molly gone, the narrator experiences some visceral and vital insights. This kind of pro

I find myself drawn to Irish writers lately and when I had the opportunity to read an author I was unfamiliar with, I jumped at the chance. "Molly Fox's Birthday" is a first person narrative which takes place over the course of a single day. The narrator is a close friend of Molly's who is using her house in Dublin for a couple of weeks while Molly is in New York and London. The story opens in the morning, closes with the evening, and the 220 pages in between interweave the narrator's story with that of Molly (a very famous stage actress who possesses an incredible voice) and Andrew who is another friend of theirs. The stories are told via reminisces and conversations with three different people who stop by during the day, not realizing that Molly is away. All kinds of relationship complications, career progressions and even the political hostilities taking place in Northern Ireland are addressed. The book is well-written and incredibly insightful regarding family/personal relationships. There were several times when I dog-eared a page since there was that beautiful moment of truth that leapt off the page. While not overly heavy, by any means, it does take patience to read since the narrative slips back and forth between past and present without warning so the reader needs to pay attention or risk getting lost. The fact that there are such beautiful, insightful passages also means it will be most appreciated by a reader who is not in a rush to get through it but willing to take the time to savor it. I enjoyed the novel immensely and would recommend it to people who like a more meandering read - not terribly linear or fast-paced, but very, very good. If you are fan of Irish writers, this would be one to try.

This story explores the lives and personalities of a small circle of highly talented, intelligent and very likeable friends. While friend Molly Fox, an unusually accomplished actress, is visiting New York, the narrator, an Irish playwright who lives in London, is borrowing Molly's house in Dublin while she tries to regenerate her creative juices. During the course of one day, which happens to be Molly's birthday, the narrator reflects upon their lives as well as those of other closely connected friends and relatives. From time to time, throughout the day, various people from the past and present are encountered, much like the visitations from Ebenezer Scrooge's ghosts. Described in highly accessible and very literate prose, each of these reminiscences and encounters add new revelations to the narrative. Eventually, the lives of these intelligent and appealing people are fleshed out, ultimately coming to a very satisfying conclusion as the day ends. I strongly recommend this novel to those who enjoy fine literature and well constructed prose.