Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

14/04/2015

Join Kerry for a show packed with classic tracks, current hits and features on films, books and food.

1 hour, 57 minutes

Last on

Tue 14 Apr 2015 15:03

Music Played

  • Billy Ocean

    When The Going Gets Tough

  • Marvin Gaye

    I Heard It Through The Grapevine

  • Adele

    Rolling In The Deep

  • Rainbow

    Since You Been Gone

  • Skinny Living

    The Journey

  • UB40

    Kingston Town

  • David McWilliams

    The Days OF Pearly Spencer

  • OMI

    Cheerleader

  • Small Faces

    What Cha Gonna Do About It

  • Love Inc.

    YouÂ’re A Superstar

  • Belinda Carlisle

    Heaven Is A Place On Earth

  • Bob Marley

    One Love

  • Cheryl

    Crazy Stupid Love

  • Garth Brooks

    You Wreck Me

  • Perry Como

    Papa Loves Mambo

  • The Shires

    Friday Night

  • Eagles

    Tequila Sunrise

  • ²¹â€h²¹

    The Living Daylights

  • Percy Sledge

    When A Man Loves A Woman

  • The La’s

    There She Goes

  • Madonna

    Vogue

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin - Reviewed by Mike Philpott

Nora Webster is a novel about loss and reawakening.

It begins in the late 1960s as the world awaits the first moon landing and the first hints of trouble make themselves felt on Northern Ireland’s streets.

Nora’s husband has just died from heart disease, leaving her with two younger sons and two daughters who live away from home.

The story is seen through Nora’s eyes, so we never know any more than she knows. This deceptively simple style has the effect of imprisoning the reader in Nora’s world through every last moment of her bereavement.

But she is a steely character – so steely in fact, that she doesn’t seem to be aware of the effects their father’s death has had on the two boys, Donal and Conor. She sees all four of her children dealing with their grief, usually without intervening. But these were the days, of course, before emotions were talked about openly.

Nora is forced to return to her old workplace to make ends meet. But slowly she begins to emerge from what has happened and finds a resurgence through classical music, which her husband had disliked.

Nora Webster is a masterful character study and an evocation of grief in all its rawness, taking it well beyond the notion of loss and shared memories.

But despite the subject matter, it is a hopeful novel. It is about a woman building a new identity for herself, away from her husband’s shadow.

The restrained writing creates an enclosed world which I was sorry to leave when I finished reading.  

Broadcast

  • Tue 14 Apr 2015 15:03