Synopsis
On a balmy May evening in 1969, three young women face very different futures. Patricia is in love, and finally agrees to spend the night with her boyfriend Paddy in the beautiful valley of Glendalough. Joan, studying for her Leaving certificate, dreams of a career as a lawyer. In a nearby Dublin suburb, fourteen-year-old Sarah wakes from a nightmare, but there is no relief from the horrors she fears are lying in wait for her.
Twenty years later, these women are brought together in a most unexpected way, for what is at stake for each of them is survival itself...
Shadows from the Fire is a powerful novel born out of anger. For years Mary Ryan has watched the male-dominated Irish courts humiliate the women who look to them for justice, particularly those involving sexual violence. Cruelty between men and women can come in many forms - physical harm the most obvious, emotional torture the most insidious. But the shocking truth to this novel is that the brutality is not imagined or exaggerated for the sake of a good read, it is real and happening today in our homes.
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Reviews
Ryan's (Mask of the Night) tone is more than a bit strident in this polemical look at oppression of females in modern Ireland, and she sacrifices some credibility of plot to sledgehammer her point home. The narrative first foreshadows the futures of three young women in 1969 Ireland, then plunges forward 20 years to show how they have fulfilled or belied their youthful promise. Beautiful Patricia is now the ignored trophy wife of a wealthy, emotionally vacant barrister; Joan, who becomes a partner with Pat's husband, is caught in a stressful, albeit advantageous, marriage to a gifted, ill artist; Sarah is trapped in a vicious cycle of spousal abuse that Pat and Joan try to help her break. As central character Pat struggles?in the novel's most convincing scenes?with her love for another man, her daughter and son are placed in situations that force her into action, though a surprise inheritance is a facile device to ease her plight. But the impact of Ryan's theme of society's wickedness toward women ("What kind of country is this?.... Are we mad or blind? Is the evil bred in the bone or do we learn it?") is lessened by her heavy-handed depiction of Pat's children, who move about in meandering set pieces, validating her fears about the world. Throughout, Irish idioms add atmospheric tang, but in serving the author's apparent agenda, the narrative, despite its vivid evocation of oppressed lives, fails to realize its potential.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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