Cacophony of Bone

September 25, 2023
In this lyrical memoir, nature writer Dochartaigh (Thin Places) documents the year she and her partner spent in a cottage “by the central bogland, in the quiet, solitary heart of Ireland.” Much of Dochartaigh’s isolation comes courtesy of the Covid-19 pandemic, but she gets a head start, newly sober and fleeing Derry with her lover after suffering a string of disappointments in the early days of 2020. Organized by month, Dochartaigh’s dispatches recount her experience tuning into the earth’s natural cycles and learning she’s pregnant after “a decade and a half of making peace with not being a mother, then a month and a half of making peace with trying.” Her often-breathtaking meditations on gardening, time (“To write is to take the idea of time and smash it into millions upon millions of miniscule pieces,” she observes, taking critic Al Alvarez’s observation that Sylvia Plath’s poetry reads “as though written posthumously” a step further), and the natural world beautifully capture the vertigo of life in 2020, though concrete details are sometimes frustratingly difficult to discern beneath the abstraction. This fragmented, emotionally intense, and hard to forget memoir mirrors the period it describes.

August 15, 2023
The author's day-book follow-up to her acclaimed debut, Thin Places. In her latest memoir, Irish writer n� Dochartaigh reflects on 2020, which she spent in isolation with her partner in a small stone cottage that he had inherited two years prior. Coupled with the tumult of the pandemic was the uncertainty that the author would ever be able to bear a child. She chronicles her thoughts and feelings from that year in various forms, including journal entries and poems. At times overly fragmented, the narrative expresses the author's strong emotions and often-obsessive thoughts about her inability to carry a pregnancy to term. "I cried and cried and cried because of grief," she writes. "Grief I have already spent far too much time, energy and ink on." On the whole, n� Dochartaigh's observations are lyrical and relatable. She describes how she took up gardening, which provided both distraction and comfort. "I wish I'd known, long before now, that sowing is a way to grieve," she writes. Throughout, n� Dochartaigh shares details of various dreams and her attempts to interpret them, including a recurring one of a "bird-child," which brought about a shift in her mindset. She also found herself consumed with memories and the meaning they hold in our lives, and she expresses being drawn to moths and "the resilience of small things." A voracious reader, n� Dochartaigh discusses works of literature that served as important companions and helped her navigate her emotions. I have found myself, in the thick of a global pandemic, utterly obsessed with Virginia Woolf," she writes. "More specifically: with her journals....Even more specifically, still: I am hungry for accounts of time experienced by women." Reflecting on the changes that the year brought for her and all of us, she notes, "I can't go back to who I was before that year." A raw, honest, and poetic memoir.

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October 1, 2023
N� Dochartaigh (Thin Places, 2022) takes readers on a yearlong journey through the unpredictable and unprecedented year of 2020. The text is broken up by months, starting in January and eerily building to March, when the world suddenly shuts down, and collective grief and anxieties about the uncertain future take over. N� Dochartaigh's reflections are powerful and poignant, examining themes of motherhood, death, and time. As she grapples with depression, sobriety, and fertility, n� Dochartaigh parallels the social turbulence and pandemic chaos with the majesty of nature. Unyielding storms, precious birds, and beautiful plants offer a sense of peace to a broken world. Readers are reminded to "remember the light," with notes of gratitude and optimism weaved throughout, along with many nods to the healing power of literature. Personal, relatable, and restorative, Cacophony of Bone voices a crucial plea to have faith in humanity: "Much is and will be lost in these uncertain times. But there is so much we can still look after. There is still so much that we can give."

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.