A guest at the feast Essays

Though Toíbín (The Magician, 2021) is best known for his acclaimed novels, he has long employed his distinctive style across several literary modes. This volume opens with his poignant journey through cancer treatment and a looming sense of mortality, while the titular piece returns to his childhood in Enniscorthy and his origin story, providing clues to how place informed his literary development. His mother, we learn, left school at 14 but was something of an autodidact, preferring "smart" books such as those by Bellow and Proust. Part Two includes biographical sketches of three recent popes and a stinging rebuke of the abuses within the Catholic church; Toíbín had been educated by several priests who were later brought to justice. Part Three includes three essays of literary criticism that allow Toíbín to display his keen aesthetic intelligence. A highlight is his deep reading of Marilynne Robinson and the presence of religion in her work. A hallmark of Toíbín is his uncanny ability to deftly express the emotional undercurrent in his writing, be it loneliness, anger, or nostalgia.

Novelist Tóibín (The Magician) gathers 11 essays that showcase his versatility in this erudite collection of previously published material. In "Cancer: My Part in Its Downfall," Tóibín reflects on his testicular cancer and the trials of chemotherapy: "the effect of the drug darkened the mind and filled it with something hard and severe and relentless. It was like pain or a sort of anguish, but those words don't really cover it." "A Brush with the Law" recalls Tóibín's earlier career as a magazine editor reporting on the Irish Supreme Court, while "The Paradoxical Pope" profiles John Paul II: "It is not simply the aura of his office that draws people to him but the mixture of his steely strength and his humanity. Also, he was once an actor, and knows about the theater." In "The Ferns Report," Tóibín poignantly examines an account of sexual abuse that occurred in the diocese where he grew up. The book closes with essays on literature, including pieces on novelists John McGahern and Marilynne Robinson. Of the latter, Tóibín writes, "With her wide reading and her well-stocked mind, Robinson is also deeply engaged with matters both philosophical and political"; this collection places him in that same class. Tóibín's fans will relish these sharp reflections. (Jan.)

A celebrated novelist offers personal essays on religion, literature, his Irish upbringing, and his cancer scare. "All of us have a landscape of the soul, places whose contours and resonances are etched into us and haunt us," Tóibín writes in this magnificent volume. These previously published essays show the landscape of the author's soul, mapping out events that have shaped him as a person and writer. He begins with the most devastating imaginable: "It all started with my balls," he begins an essay that recounts his ordeal of having "cancer of the testicles that had spread to a lymph node and to one lung." Grim humor punctuates the piece, as when he describes the time he couldn't get to the hospital during an emergency because Pope Francis was visiting Dublin and had clogged the streets. The last three popes are the focus of the book's coruscating middle section. A 1995 essay on John Paul II describes the belief that, under his pontificate, "there will be no change, and no discussion about change," regarding women priests, bans on contraception, and more--a belief that proved correct. The other middle essays focus on the Catholic Church's attempts to blame its many sex-abuse scandals on "homosexuality, not celibacy," and on the authoritarian Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who, as Pope Francis, suddenly became the "poster boy for informality, humility, and good-natured cheerfulness." In the title piece, Tóibín movingly recounts his upbringing in Ireland and what it was like "to be gay in a repressive society." Essays on writers Marilynne Robinson, Francis Stuart, and John McGahern and a moving epilogue on the pandemic conclude the book. Throughout, the poetry of Tóibín's prose is as impressive as always. In that title piece, he writes that his mother was "what most of us still write for: the ordinary reader, curious and intelligent and demanding, ready to be moved and changed." Readers like her will savor every page of this book. Erudite essays from one of the world's finest writers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.