"History of the rain" by Niall Williams

An audio book.

Ruth Swain, Irish, went to Trinity but then fell ill (leukaemia?) and is bedbound. She lives at the top of a farmhouse in a room with 3958 books which she liberally quotes from. She says "hope is a thing with feathers". It used to be her father's writing room. A tutor, Mrs Quinty, comes once or twice a week. Her mother and old granny live below.

She's writing a book about her father who went to and returned to marry late. She fills in the gaps between what she's been told with her imagination. He, Virgil, was a poet, a dreamer. He'd researched his father, Abraham, who was English. He went to Oxford, became a soldier, was shot, and went to Ireland without telling his father he'd survived. When Abraham finally told his father, his father died in a week and Abraham lost his faith, prefering to catch Salmon.

Ruth thinks that "we are our stories" and self-consciously writes, using "Dear Reader" and wondering what the locals will think of the book, especially if they're not in it. Mrs Quinty thinks Ruth's style is excessive. Ruth has traits that she thinks are in the Swain tradition ("distance was something Swains did well"). She's a twin. She thinks she's plain. She's had a suitor, Vincent, since she was about 6.

It's a small community, where "illness tennis is played by masters" in conversation, and "poor man" signals the end of a set.

Her brother died in a river accident. Mrs Quinty sent a book (called "History of the Rain") of Virgil's poems to London. The village excitedly awaits the verdict. He started teaching Yeats, started writing poems again. The house caught fire. While it's being repaired, he and Ruth promised to write about each other. This book is her side of the promise. She caught him throwing his poems into the river. She found him dead at his writing desk. The book of poems never got to the publisher.

She's moved to hospital. She likes tidy stories -rain becomes river (where her brother died, where her grandfather fished) becomes sea (where her father went) becomes rain.

Other reviews

• Catherine Taylor (Williams's rendering of the desolation of grief is affecting, as is the sympathy he evokes for the spirited Ruth's plight. Yet he can't seem to resist cliche and sentimentality, leaving the waterlogged reader longing for dry land.)
• Reading matters
• Peter Pierce