Skip to main content

Who Occupies This House by Kathleen Hill: book review

 



Who Occupies This House (2010) is set in the same house, covering 100 years of family history, complete with photographs and illustrations.


The narrator begins this memoir seven years after her mother’s death. It is mostly about the house her mother and relatives lived in for almost a hundred years since 1912, two years after it was built. 


Her grandfather and grandmother Willie and Deirdre’s items are still in the house they rented on the day the Titanic sank. They bought the house in 1917. The narrator’s mother Kate bought the house in 1994. The narrator’s father and mother Bert and Kate’s objects are also still in the house. Objects of heritage, love, and everyday life: from photographs to books to cutlery … ‘poems cut from newspapers; articles, invitations, calling cards, train schedules, maps, menus, postcards …’


The short stories of the house and its inhabitants include her mother’s younger sister. The narrator writes about the history of the house and historical events that mark the passing of time. She writes about her relatives and the different roads they have taken.


But it is a past with missing pieces because the narrator never lived in the house. And now the narrator has to let it go. With her husband Martin and three daughters, she is faced with the sale of the family home.


Despite not living in the house, her despondency is palpable. Why does she feel this way? What memories will her daughters have of their heritage? What is her legacy? 


Compiled from letters, journals, documents and memories, this is an account of a house’s occupants. First Willie and Deirdre Carmody and relatives who left Ireland for America, then her mother and father – and her mother’s little diary. Happy times, tragic times. 


Overall, although there are poignant accounts, I found it rather disjointed as it is not chronological. Instead, it is more of a series of remembrances, crossing generations and people and history that does not necessary fill in the missing pieces, but confuses them. 









As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

 

MARTINA NICOLLS

MartinaNicollsWebsite

 

Martinasblogs

Publications

Facebook

Paris Website

Animal Website

Flower Website

SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES 

 

MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass
Post a Comment
Read more

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou
8 comments
Read more