Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Irish journalist Toibin's compelling tale of love and art set in the United Kingdom and Franco's Spain, makes for a rich and remarkable debut. (Oct.)
Library Journal
This exceptional first novel has the unusual quality of taking Irish material, allegedly unique, and making it European, a matter of some significance on the brink of the 1992 European Community. Here, in 1950, Katherine Proctor flees husband, child, and County Wexford for Spain. She, a Catalan lover, and another Irish emigre, painters all, fashion new worlds in their work while fighting past worlds in their lives. Toibin sketches this predicament with restrained vignettes concentrated on Katherine's general discontents and momentary satisfactions over a number of years evoking the Irish Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, Ulster violence, and Catalonian nationalism. Thus, The South raises personal neuroses to the power of collective politics. It comes with praise from Don DeLillo and John Banville, among whose works it fits very well.-- John P. Harrington, Cooper Union, New York
From the Publisher
Tóibín’s talent is amazing…a stunning novel.”—The Washington Post Book World
“A book of sustained lyrical beauty and power.”—Chicago Tribune
“A strong and moving work of fiction about the hard truths of changing one’s life. A grand achievement.”—Don DeLillo
“Tóibín’s first novel is a broad and beautifully worked canvas…an imaginative, deeply felt, and evocative tale.”—The Sunday Times
