Mothers and Sons (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781416534662)

With dazzling brilliance and empathy, Colm Tóibín's collection of stories wrestles with complicated themes of emotional restraint, the long reach of sexual repression, and the difficulty of escaping one's past.

Each of the nine stories in this beautifully written, intensely intimate collection centers on a transformative moment that alters the delicate balance of power between mother and son, or changes the way they perceive one another. With exquisite grace and eloquence, Tóibín writes of men and women bound by convention, by unspoken emotions, by the stronghold of the past. Many are trapped in lives they would not choose again, if they ever chose at all.

A man buries his mother and converts his grief to desire in one night. A famous singer captivates an audience, yet cannot beguile her own estranged son. And in A Long Winter, Colm Tóibín's finest piece to date, a young man searches for his mother in the snow-covered mountains where she has sought escape from the husband who controls and confines her.

Winner of numerous awards for his fifth novel, The Master--including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award--Tóibín brings to this stunning first collection an acute understanding of human frailty and longing. These are haunting, profoundly moving stories by a writer who is himself a master.

Author: Colm Toibin
ISBN-10: 1416534660
ISBN-13: 9781416534662
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Language: English
Published: 01/01/2008
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.30w x 0.61d

Review Citation(s):
Entertainment Weekly 01/18/2008 pg. 87
New York Times Book Review 02/03/2008 pg. 28

About the Author
Colm Tóibín is the author of ten novels, including The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York.