Brigit Egan is dying but she has no
intention of going quietly into the dark night. In All Gods Dead, an
extraordinary and ambitious novel, the author Marian O'Neill explores the
external and internal struggle that surrounds Brigit's final days. Externally,
she is watched over by her daughters, Deirdre and Ruth, who are caught up in
the tragic ritual of their mother's approaching demise. They share shifts at
the nursing home, console each other with meals, bottles of wine, black humour
and recollections of their childhood.
Both have different perceptions of
the love they received from their mother. Ruth has always viewed it as deep and
unconditional whereas Deirdre believes that Brigit’s love came laden with
demands and expectations she was never able to fathom.
Brigit, outwardly drooling, confused
and heavily sedated, is engaged in an internal struggle as her memory cuts
through the mists of her past with pitiless accuracy. Skin by skin, the layers
of her youth are stripped away as she reveals how she escaped from the dulled
confines of middle-class Irish society in the 1920 and created a new life for
herself on the edges of Parisian society.
Beautiful and reckless, Brigit senses
her escape when a brash young man in a flashy car drives by her parents’ house.
Without hesitating, she climbs abroad and turns her face towards the freedom
she senses beyond the green hills of home. But there are no greener, faraway hills.
Just city after city, London, Paris, Berlin, each with its thrills, its dangers
and its temptations.
Brigit becomes JoJo, she is today's
wannabe, the groupie, hanging on the edges of other people’s lives, knowing she
can never be part of this sophisticated, swinging society. Marian O'Neill is an
lyrical writer, sparse yet precise in her descriptions of the cafe culture that
danced its way through the decade and beyond.
JoJo whirls with it, part-time dancer
and singer, short-time lover of Picasso, confidante of Hemingway and
Fitzgerald, circus performer and, eventually, when there are only two paths she
can take, she opts for her safe, middle-class roots and embraces marriage and
motherhood instead of self-destruction.
Her secret is safe and is banked down
over the decades until, as she faces her own mortality, her story must be told,
even if only she can hear it. To the others who come and go from her bedside,
they are hearing the muttered ravings of a dying woman.
All Gods Dead brings a fascinating, decadent
decade to life. The author has a brave voice and a light touch that moves us
effortlessly from city to city, endowing each one with its own unique and
historical atmosphere.
