Nuala O'Faolain

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Almost There
by Nuala O'Faolain

ISBN 0141012846 (0-14-101284-6)
Softcover, Penguin Books, Limited

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- Almost There: ISBN 0141012846 (0-14-101284-6)
  Softcover, Penguin Books, Limited
Almost There : The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman
by Nuala O'Faolain

ISBN 0718146247 (0-7181-4624-7)
Softcover, Penguin Books, Limited

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Are You Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman
by Nuala O'Faolain

ISBN 0805056645 (0-8050-5664-5)
Softcover, Henry Holt & Co

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Book summary:
Self-preservation did not come instinctually to Irish journalist Nuala O'Faolain. One of 9 children--her mother had 13 pregnancies in all--she grew up in the 1940s and '50s in a defeated Dublin household. Her reporter father seems to have spent his time and money, and even love, elsewhere--and as the family grew more isolated and unable to cope, alcohol became her mother's only way out. "One of the stories of my life has been the working out in it of her powerful and damaging example in everything," the author admits, "Nothing mattered to her except passion." Some of O'Faolain's siblings emphatically didn't make it, but she was lucky to find refuge in books. They have been a defense, a comfort, and a delight.
Does her memoir then follow the standard rags-to-self-acceptance trajectory? Are you wondering if perhaps you can give it a miss, and in fact send the entire genre on a well-deserved vacation? Don't. Are You Somebody (the title unaccountably lost a question mark somewhere between the Irish and American editions) offers a wrenching account of childhood and a highly provocative take on the sexual and professional situation of Irish women. Though literature made O'Faolain, the male-dominated literary life and industry certainly didn't, and she now gives it more than a few body blows. It was a world in which writing and drink mattered far more than women: "The 'literary Dublin' I saw lied to women as a matter of course and conspired against the demands of wives and mistresses.... Women either had to make no demands, and be liked, or be much larger than life, and feared."
Irish women didn't seem to know to look for, let alone demand, equality. O'Faolain miraculously avoided pregnancy; but others were not so blessed. "Lives were ruined at that time, thousands and thousands of them, quite casually.... They were hotly pursued, and half longed to yield, but they were not able to defend themselves against pregnancy, and they were destroyed if they got pregnant." For all her energy and ambition and good fortune (and she needed this trio to jump her family's "sinking ship" and avoid getting pregnant), O'Faolain fell for the cant that she must marry, have children, and serve. Some will be initially shocked by her assertion that she was lucky never to have had a child. "Childbearing, along with bad education, relationships that managed to be simultaneously all-absorbing and rewarding, and financial dependence--these were the enemies of promise. But that's not why I'm glad; I didn't think of myself as having promise. I'm glad because under the old system it was so easy to rear children badly. The child wouldn't have properly survived." Yet the '70s enabled her to break out of the assumptions and realities of Irish women's lives, not to mention her yearning to be like "the troubled, rich, English upper-class people in books."
At the end of her memoir, O'Faolain knows she finally is, in fact, somebody. Still, those who don't recognize her see her only as a single, middle-aged woman. Like children, such individuals "aren't supposed to kick up." Thanks to this bracing book, the author gets to permanently do so. The writing exercise has answered some of her questions and some of her fears, but O'Faolain is too honest not to admit that for others there is no response or cure. She leaves us wanting to know more about her life but grateful that she has allowed us in. [via]
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Are You Somebody? : The Life and Times of Nuala O'Faolain
by Nuala O'Faolain

ISBN 034069663X (0-340-69663-X)
Softcover, Hodder General Publishing Division

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More editions of Are You Somebody? : The Life and Times of Nuala O'Faolain:
- Are You Somebody? : The Life and Times of Nuala O'Faolain: ISBN 0340728868 (0-340-72886-8)
  Softcover, Hodder General Publishing Division
- Are You Somebody? : The Life and Times of Nuala O'Faolain: ISBN 034069663X (0-340-69663-X)
  Softcover, Hodder General Publishing Division
The Irish File : Images from a Land of Grace
by Jon Michael Riley, Nuala O'Faolain

ISBN 0500542554 (0-500-54255-4)
Hardcover, Thames & Hudson

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  Hardcover, Thames & Hudson
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My Dream of You
by Nuala O'Faolain

ISBN 0718144864 (0-7181-4486-4)
Softcover, Penguin Books, Limited

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The Story of Chicago May
by Nuala O'Faolain

ISBN 0718145240 (0-7181-4524-0)
Softcover, Penguin Books, Limited

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Book summary:
Nuala O'Faolain received critical acclaim for her candid memoirs Are You Somebody? and Almost There. Here, she embraces the life of a notorious criminal, an unrepentant and enigmatic daughter of Ireland Chicago May. Legend says that May was a mesmerizing beauty, with startling blue eyes and hair spun of red and gold who captured the hearts of men wherever she went. At nineteen, she stole her family's savings and ran away from her home in rural Ireland to America, arriving first at Nebraska. May then travelled to Chicago and onto New York where she worked in a variety of unsavoury jobs and was soon hailed in tabloids as a Queen of the Und erworld'. But this was nothing in comparison with what was to follow. In 1901, May had fallen in love with big-time criminal Eddie Guerin and followed him to Paris where together, they robbed the American Express. But they were both caught and sent to prison. She survived, returning to America to reinvent herself again and again until her death in 1929. [via]
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Nuala O'Faolain

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Nuala O'Faolain

new books, used books, rare books by Nuala O'Faolain

Founded in 1997, BookFinder.com has become a leading book price comparison site: Find and compare hundreds of millions of new books, used books, rare books and out of print books from over 100,000 booksellers and 60+ websites worldwide.

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Founded in 1997, BookFinder.com has become a leading book price comparison site:

Find and compare hundreds of millions of new books, used books, rare books and out of print books from over 100,000 booksellers and 60+ websites worldwide.