An 84-year-old Irish man might seem an unlikely lead character for a book. But When All Is Said, by debut novelist Anne Griffin, is very much Maurice Hannigan’s story. One that is told through the five toasts he drinks to the five people who most impacted and shaped his life.
Maurice’s life unfolds across the five vignettes that make up When All Is Said. They start with a toast to his beloved older brother Tony, who died too young, and end with one to his equally beloved late wife Sadie, who passed away two years prior. So yes, there is grief and sadness in this book, but it’s also poignant, touching and often funny.
Another of Maurice’s toasts, taken while sitting at the bar of a hotel he secretly part-owns, is to Sadie’s sister Noreen, who, despite living with a mental illness, brings humour and lightness to When All Is Said. Her obsession with coins also plays a part in a story thread that runs from Maurice’s childhood to his old age. It centres around a valuable coin that he finds and keeps as revenge for his poor treatment by its owners. But the consequences of this childish action are far-reaching.
As each toast is drunk, the story of the person’s role in Maurice’s life is related (in his head) to his son Kevin, a successful journalist living in the US. A career and life that is so different to Maurice’s as a farmer and landowner, that their relationship has always been strained. Something not helped by Maurice’s inability to share his love and affection with those closest to him, and his ability to be quite mean!
This is illustrated when Maurice refuses to let his wife indulge in a scoop of ice cream with her pudding. This, despite his wealth and devotion to Sadie. But that was one of Maurice’s biggest flaws and biggest regrets. He loved deeply but was incapable of expressing it. There’s a line in When All Is Said when he admits, “There was a love…but of the Irish kind, reserved and embarrassed by its own humanity.”
It’s this that makes Maurice someone that you can’t help but feel affection for and who will stay with you long after the end of When All Is Said.
I borrowed a copy of When All Is Said from my local library. You might also find a secondhand copy at your local Oxfam shop or the charity’s online store.
For more book reviews, visit the Books section of my blog, and you can read about my visit to Berlin in this post.