As It Is in Heaven
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
Love is not easy, especially if you find the woman of your dreams and then lose her – as Philip Griffin and his son Stephen each discover in turn.
Stephen is just a boy when his mother and sister are killed in a car crash, and his father never recovers from the accident: he wasn’t involved but is consumed by grief, his only desire to be reunited with his wife. Before that happens, though, Philip wants to ensure the happiness of his son, Stephen – now a grown man.
‘As it is in Heaven, Niall Williams’ tale of love and tragedy, will leave you in tears’ Tatler
‘A bitter-sweet novel about passionate love giving way to commitment, grief to a sort of healing’ Irish Times
‘A tender and sober novel with a faith in romance that is absolute’ Daily Express
‘Delicious coincidence and tragedy, as extraordinary lives unravel and intertwine’ Guardian
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Williams, a gifted Irish writer, was known only for nonfiction until his first novel Four Letters of Love reaped a chorus of praise (including a PW Best Books accolade) a couple of years ago. Now he has tried to repeat the trick, but unfortunately the freshness that leaped from the pages has become mere practiced calculation. His hero, Stephen Griffin, is a dim young man declining into premature senility as a history teacher, whose life is transformed by the rather improbable arrival of a beautiful but deeply unhappy young Italian violinist, Gabriella Castoldi, to play a concert at a little West Ireland hotel. Griffin is struck dumb with passion; since symptoms of magic realism abound, smells of white lilies and a general glowing aura convince those around him he is in love. Gabriella, emerging from an unhappy affair, decides to stay on in Ireland; Griffin meets her again and they have a fling; she goes back to Venice and finds she is pregnant; he follows but cannot find her; she comes back; finally, they carry out the wishes of an old blind seafarer (shades of Under Milk Wood's Captain Cat) and build a beautiful little music school by the sea. Williams is a felicitous phrasemaker, and he conjures up some lovely poetic images of weather and seascapes. Passages about the ineffable beauty of music and the emotional impact it can have are touching. But the sense of delighted surprise that was so constant in Letters is notably absent; the story is far more rigidly structured, and the characters, from Stephen's poor dad dying of cancer and trying to give his money away, to a chirpy lady who keeps a greengrocer shop and knows what fruits to sell for all ills of the heart, are tired clich s. There are pleasures here for those who enjoy the equivalent of a beautifully photographed, sad movie, but Williams had seemed capable of much more. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates; author tour.
