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| Mothers and Sons | 
 enlarge | Author: Colm Toibin
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy Used: £0.60
You Save: £12.39 (95%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 246327
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 309
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0330441825
EAN: 9780330441827
ASIN: 0330441825
Publication Date: September 1, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Disappointing September 30, 2008
A fairly unremarkable collection, although a Priest in the Family is a very satisfying tale. Toibin is a far superior novelist - but then as a novelist he is truly world class.
Well-written but somewhat enigmatic December 30, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had never previously read any of Colm Toibin's works so I came to these short stories with an open mind, though obviously influenced by the good reviews the book has received in the press. I've read just three of the stories: the first two, and the last (the longest) and while the writing is good and the atmosphere is very well evoked I found them somewhat unsatisfying. Sometimes you do need to have an open ending so you can make up your own mind but to me two of these stories almost seemed to be lifted from a longer novel, such was the effect of inconclusiveness.
I much preferred the book of William Trevor's short stories (After Rain) which I read a year earlier - he is a writer I would return to. I will try a novel by Colm Toibin but his short stories don't quite suit my tastes.
 Memorable stories November 17, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The thread that ties the beautifully written nine stories in this book together is that in each one there is a complex relationship between a mother and a son. I don't think that all of them `focus' on this relationship, as the blurb on the back has it, for only in four of the nine stories is it central. Rather, each one seems to me to focus on either the mother or the son; but whichever it is, we are let deeply into that person's thoughts and see the world through that person's eyes, and mostly it is a sad or even tragic world. A death figures in several of the stories. Some are most evocatively set in various very Irish communities: a criminal one in the first story, an Irish pub in the second, a small village where everyone knows everyone else in others. The long last story is set in the mountains of Spain. All are memorable in their deceptively simple style and in their psychological content.
"He thought about the confidence of those roads, their strength and their solidity" April 23, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
In Mothers and Sons, Irish writer Colm Toibin continues his trademark gift for presenting nuance and intimacy in this collection of nine haunting and exquisitely written short stories. Melancholy and thought-provoking, and filled with the complexities of life, Toibin introduces us to sons and mothers who are constantly grappling to understand each other and where an emotional canvas of familiaral expectation is as rich and as unexpected as life itself.
In the first story, "The Use of Reason," alcoholism lurks just below the surface as an art thief living in Dublin realizes that he may not be able to rely on the discretion of his mother as he once first thought. Having just stolen a valuable Rembrandt, he's anxious to unload the work to a pair of Dutch criminals, but unfortunately, his mother just doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut boasting in the local pub her beloved son's escapades.
In "The Name of the Game" we see a mother forced to provide for her son when after the death of her husband she inherits his supermarket, along with all of his debts. All of a sudden, faced with certain poverty, she learns to be tough and competitive and on the advice of her suppliers, she takes a risk and enlarges the store into a chip and burger shop, perhaps relying more on her own tenacity, than on the family's dwindling resources. In the process of remaking the business, she discovers that her son has a good head for numbers and comes to her aid, helping out with the accounting and preparing the way for her retirement.
Other stories cover similar themes: There's a mother's disbelief, disappointment and her decisive fear of facing the truth when she hears that her son has been arrested over accusations of sexual abuse; then there's a mother who is battling her son's depression whilst also coping with her husband, bedridden after a stroke; and a son who was abandoned as a child and then suddenly hears his mother singing in a pub; and yet another son, who after his mother's funeral, goes out partying with his mates and awakens to all things sexual one night on a beach.
Each story is infused with the myriad attributes of human emotions: the heartbreak that exists over the loss of a parent, a love that is betrayed, and the inevitable disappointments that come when you realize that your son or your mother, or even your sibling is perhaps not the person who you thought they were. While the smaller stories provide small vignettes of anticipation along with despair and even acceptance, the longer stories have a luminosity all their own and are infused with a steadily mounting tension.
The final story "A Long Winter," and set in Spain is all about yearning and defeat, and centers on a son's concern for his alcoholic mother when the needless cruelty of his father eventually leads to her disappearance into the harsh bleak Spanish winter. As the boy spends his days desperately searching for her, he battles with his hidden desires and his attraction for a good-looking police officer and then for an uneducated houseboy whom his father employs to help around the house.
Throughout these stories Toibin courageously reiterates the truth unflinchingly about love and families and the ties that inevitably bind us together. Indeed the author seems to embrace what he sees as the melancholy and sadder aspects of life. Written in Toibin's now familiar exquisite style, this collection contains many small gems, and are fine examples of the art of short story writing. In the end, Mothers and Sons is often heart wrenching, but always thought-provoking as these tales evoke the bittersweet angst of ordinary people, the "mothers and sons" that exist in us all. Mike Leonard April 07.
Excellent collection March 21, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an engaging collection of short stories that to greater or lesser degrees explore the relationship between mothers and sons. As with most of Toibin's work, there is a sustained emotional distance between the narrator and the characters. It's not a cold and clinical distance, but it is at times one of disinterest. The characters and all their flaws are placed on view and no authorial judgment is passed on their actions. The most successful stories in this collection are the slightly longer ones like The Name of the Game, a brilliantly realised portrayal of selfishness or self-determination, and the vignette-like The Song, a painful tale of repression that is finished just minutes after beginning it. There's not much emotional warmth in the stories, as the filial relationships are rarely peaceful or mutually satisfying, but the craftsmanship is superb and the stories are memorable for their sharply drawn characters.
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