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Volume 8, Number 2 - Spring 2010
Award-Winning Colm Tóibín will Read at Benefit
The New York Times called his prose “elegant in its simplicity” and emotionally complex. His latest book, Brooklyn, won the Costa Novel Award in January. On April 1, the journalist, novelist and playwright Colm Tóibín will bring his Irish lyricism and rich storytelling to the Nassau Club in Princeton as part of the annual People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos benefit.
“Once again, we have the good fortune to welcome an author of major literary influence as the guest speaker for our annual event, just as we did last year when Amy Hempel mesmerized our audience,” said People & Stories executive director Patricia Andres. Tóibín’s reading will be followed by a dessert reception.
Tóibín has been short-listed for major awards in the past for novels including The Heather Blazing and The Master. Brooklyn, published in 2009, is at once poetic in the lyrical, quiet power of its language and compelling in its story of a young woman’s migration from Ireland to New York in the early 1950’s. The novel is a deeply moving exploration of the heart’s longing for home.
According to Library Journal, Brooklyn is rendered “with an aching lyricism reminiscent of the mature Henry James and ultimately confers upon [the] readers a sort of grace that illuminates the opportunities for tenderness in our lives. [A]ccessible and sublime…highly recommended.”
Judy Feldman, People & Stories board member and event co-chair, had this to say about Brooklyn: “Listening to Colm Tóibín read from it, I was struck by the gentleness of his delivery, the soft lyrical flow of words that are packed with emotion. Having read the book and enjoyed it enormously, I was totally entranced listening to just one short passage.”
Board member Lynne Fagles recommended we add Tóibín’s short story “One Minus One” to the People & Stories curriculum. The story, which recounts a memory of the narrator’s return from New York to Ireland, where his mother is dying, will be among those read by groups in re-entry programs, prisons, homeless shelters, and community centers this spring.
The story is rich with poetic sparks—“the moon is my mother…there are folds of red in her vast amber”—as well as the interesting tensions and ambiguities that invite our readers/listeners to probe both the text before them and their own memories deeply.
“One minus one equals something like zero,” reflects the narrator’s consciousness as he remembers that his emotional distances and ambivalences mirror his mother’s unexplained absences during his boyhood. In inimitable style, this short story opens the heart, leaving it softer, more vulnerable, perhaps even more available.
In addition to the literary beauty of his works, Colm Tóibín promises to be an inviting presence at our event. According to People & Stories webmaster and designer Michael Ann Walstad, “Colm Tóibín visited a course I audited this fall at Princeton University, ‘Princeton Reads.’ He was a total delight. Open and humorous, he entertained us in the manner of an Irish storyteller with anecdotes about Brooklyn, his life and his approach to writing. I can’t remember when I have enjoyed myself so much!”
Plan to join us at the Nassau Club on April 1 at 7:30 PM. For ticket information call People & Stories at 609-393-3230 or go to our web page on ticket information.