That beautiful, untamed brunette (or was she a woman in Zee & Co.?) was once more fervid than Elizabeth Taylor in party mood. Edna O’Brien at the age of 73, however, is a circumspect Titian, with a porcelain complexion and minimal maquillage. The rebellious country girl, who ran away from a village in County Clare, has been for many years a ladylike resident of London. Or so she appears. One should not judge novelists by their appearance, perhaps, but her presence in her writing is so relentlessly pervasive that it is impossible not to notice the altered superficialities and wonder how she has changed inside.

She hasn’t. Readers who loved her anti-authoritarian previous books are sure to love this one too. But though The Light of Evening is about an ill-starred maternal and filial relationship it is no elegiac swan song. O’Brien ardently expresses her undiminished capacity for unforgiveness. She evidently feels the same as ever about most men, not only the Black and Tans.

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