Mother Mary comes to me
This story was first published in The Straits Times on Sept 17, 2013
Remind Irish writer Colm Toibin that he has won almost every major literary prize in the West and he immediately says: "I haven't won the Booker Prize."
He is up for the £50,000 (S$100,680) award for the fourth time this year for his play-turned-novel The Testament Of Mary, a retelling of biblical events through the voice of the mother of Jesus.
The roughly 100-page volume, possibly the slimmest in Booker history, is on a shortlist of six including former Booker winner Jhumpa Lahiri's newest, The Lowland. The winner will be announced on Oct 15.
In a telephone interview from his home in Ireland, Toibin, 58, refuses to speculate on his chances of winning.
He coolly recounts how he received the news that he was on the longlist. "I didn't know what day the announcement was coming, so I just opened an e-mail and I said: 'Oh wow'," he says, the exclamation at odds with the even tenor of his voice.
A subtle dry wit underlies his measured vocalisations. Toibin may answer questions with the bare minimum of words, but all are carefully chosen, echoing the taut elegance of his prize-winning prose.
Given that almost every work of his fiction has won some award, there may not even be room on his shelf for a Booker.
Among others, he took a coveted Costa Award for the Booker-longlisted novel Brooklyn (2009), about an Irish immigrant in America. Considered among his bestsellers, it has sold more than 1,000 copies in Singapore since 2010, said distributor Penguin Books.
Toibin also won one of the world's richest book prizes, the ¤100,000 (S$168,630) International Impac Dublin Literary Award for The Master (2004), a reimagining of the inner life of novelist Henry James. It was shortlisted for the Booker but never took the gold.
Another early contender on the Booker shortlist was The Blackwater Lightship (1999), about three generations of Irish women caring for a young relative dying of Aids. It was made into a Hallmark movie in 2004, starring Angela Lansbury.
The Testament Of Mary comes to print from another direction. It was originally a monologue written for Irish actress Marie Mullen at the 2011 Dublin Theatre Festival, and performed again this April on Broadway by Fiona Shaw, known for playing Harry Potter's evil aunt Petunia in the movie franchise.
Toibin's play closed early on Broadway because of poor attendance but was nominated for several Tony Awards. It did not win any.
An audio version of the novel on sale now is read by Meryl Streep, completing the trifecta of strong female voices in the part.
Giving Mary a voice was the reason Irish-Catholic Toibin wrote the play.
"I know the prayers. They're in my bones," he says, adding that he has long been fascinated with the depiction of the Virgin Mary in art.
"Since I was 22, I'd been going to Italy every year and spending time in the galleries. The best pictures are the morning of the Annunciation and the night of the Crucifixion," he says, referring to the moment when Mary is told by an angel that she will give birth to Jesus, and when she and other women weep at the foot of the cross.
Moved by the paintings, he began to wonder what Mary's voice would sound like. "If you think of how she was painted, the painting is always silent. I was also listening to a lot of mezzo-sopranos."
While reading Greek tragedies centred on women, such as Electra and Antigone, he realised: "If you grafted that onto the story, it had all the same elements, also the impending doom and chorus."
Last year, Toibin's publisher suggested he adapt the play to be a novel and rather than adding to the text, the writer decided to prune it ruthlessly. "There was a lot of calling back. It had to be very sharp. I didn't think it would bear slackening or side plots," he recalls. "The problem was, some of the sentences are so ornate."
It is impossible not to be moved by the raw anguish in the novel, and The Testament Of Mary is equally testament to Toibin's ability to see into a woman's heart.
However, compliment him on this skill displayed also in books such as Brooklyn and The Blackwater Lightship, and he counters that he is equally able to, and fond of, writing about men. Apart from The Master, there is The Heather Blazing (1992), his award-winning second novel about a Dublin judge whose life was shaped by the early loss of his father.
Toibin also lost his father, a teacher, when he was 12, and the resulting void did shape many of his novels, as did the fact that he and his younger brother spent their youth surrounded by their mother, aunts and three sisters.
"I know what women talk about when they're alone," he says. "Clothes."
After graduating from University College Dublin, the openly gay bachelor taught English for three years in Barcelona and returned to a journalist's life in Ireland in 1978. His first gig was covering nightlife - "Discotheques," he says - for a friend's magazine, though he would go on to write about politics, current affairs and the 1982 Falklands War.
In 1982, he became editor of current affairs magazine Magill, leaving three years later to travel and write.
His first two novels, The South and The Heather Blazing, won awards for first and second novels, encouraging him to write full time.
His output is prodigious: Apart from seven novels, two plays, two collections of short stories and more than a dozen works of non-fiction, he contributes short stories and essays to newspapers such as the Guardian and magazines such as Esquire.
While writing, he prefers a serviceable but less cushy seat that provides physical incentive to finish the work. "I write in long hand in ink. It just means that you get the thing done in a more direct way, you're closer to it and you can touch it."
On leave from his post as professor of humanities at Columbia University in New York, he is close to finishing a new book set in Ireland in the 1960s, even as the deadline looms for the final Booker announcement.
Asked whether he feels under any pressure, he pauses before answering. "I've been up for the Booker a lot. The problem is, if you think about that, that I'm going to win a prize - no, no, no," he says finally. "No, no, no."
Colm Toibin's books are available at major bookstores.
This story was first published in The Straits Times on Sept 17, 2013
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Must-read Toibin
The South (1990)
Scribner reprint/ Paperback/240 pages/$17.15/Amazon.com
In 1950, an Irish woman walks out of an unhappy marriage to pursue painting in Spain, finding new love and heartbreak along the way.
Toibin's first novel, about art and exile, was drawn from his own experience living in Barcelona from 1975 to 1978. It won the Irish Times/Aer Lingus First Fiction Award.
The Master (2004)
Scribner/Paperback format/338 pages/$14.60/Amazon.com
Toibin excels at describing the inner lives of geniuses and here, he takes on master writer Henry James.
The book follows James from his failure as a writer for theatre to the completion of great works such as The Wings Of The Dove, contrasting his talent with words with his emotional inadequacies. It won the Impac Dublin award.
Mothers And Sons (2006)
Pan Macmillan/ Paperback/324 pages/ $17.98/Books Kinokuniya
These nine stories about family are beautifully written to illuminate the complex relationships between mothers and sons, depicted here as more tense than heartwarming. Especially unnerving are stories such as A Priest In The Family, in which a mother learns her son is accused of sexual abuse.
Brooklyn (2009)
Penguin/Paperback/256 pages/ $18.14/Major bookstores
A tender and tense romance about the Irish immigrant experience in America, this is one of Toibin's best-selling novels in Singapore and it has won the Costa Novel Award.
Ireland in the 1950s holds no chance of work or love for Ellis Lacey, so she sets sail for New York and a new life. Her evolution from homesick ingenue uncomfortable in her own skin to a person in her own right is riveting.
The Testament Of Mary (2013)
Penguin/Paperback/104 pages/ $19.80/Major bookstores
Mary, mother of Jesus, tells her version of events depicted in the Bible in what is one of the shortest novels ever up for the Man Booker Prize.
The slim volume was adapted from a one-woman play Toibin wrote in the style of the Greek tragedies and packs a powerful emotional punch that exceeds the page count.
Readers will be ripped apart by the raw and fierce words of a woman devastated by the death of her son, and eagerly anticipate catching the dramatic version some day.
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