This novel by the late Northern Irish author Brian Moore is a masterpiece of character depiction centred on the crisis of faith experienced by middle-aged Catholic spinster Judith Hearne as she struggles with the harsh reality of her life in Belfast, marked by loneliness, financial difficulty and a deteriorating mental state.
We meet her on her arrival at her new lodgings – a shabby bedsit where she meets and develops an interest in the confident and stylish James Madden, the brother of her landlady, who she sees as being her last chance for love and marriage.
This is the start of a harsh but deeply human portrayal of a life unravelling, as Hearne’s new-found hope for a brighter future rapidly turns into disillusionment and desperation and she descends into alcoholism as a way of numbing the pain.
Her weekly teatime visits to the O’Neills, her only social activity but which the family secretly dreads, provide little solace, and in fact become the catalyst for lifting the veil on a life lived in sacrifice at the beckoning of an unsympathetic aunt and in the shackles of a faith that, in her moment of need, failed to show mercy, but only judgement.