All We Shall Know

Melody Shee’s already tenuous marriage collapses when she becomes pregnant by another man. The father’s identity is a closely guarded secret, but the reader knows he is an Irish Traveller, an ethnic group subject to cultural and political discrimination. Melody struggles to cope with this dramatic change in circumstances, made worse by knowing she bears most of the responsibility for the mess she is now in. Melody takes to lurking around the Travellers’ part of town and learns her baby’s father has left the area for work. She befriends his cousin Mary who is much younger than Melody but wiser in many ways.

Through her friendship with Mary, Melody becomes more involved in issues the Travellers face day-to-day, and while she show more cannot change these societal forces she hopes to at least provide Mary with safety and respect. In turn, Mary gives Melody emotional support that sustains her throughout her pregnancy and helps her resist pressure from her father and husband to return to her “normal” married life.

Both women are in situations that threaten to fall apart at any moment. And sure enough, they do, in dramatic page-turning fashion. Donal Ryan kept me on the edge of my seat, frantic with worry, and brought events to a fitting emotional conclusion that, in hindsight, was the best way to resolve both Melody and Mary’s predicaments. show less

This was such a compelling read, not least in Ryan's utterly convincing narration as a pregnant wife in a destructive marriage.
The first sentence sets the scene- Melody Shee is a 33 year old teacher, who finds herself expecting the child of her 17 year old traveller student. Each chapter takes one week of that time: the revelation to her husband and breakdown of the marriage; an attempt to visit the baby's father...and the befriending of a young traveller woman whose own life has similarities to Melody's; and the touching visits to her elderly father.
Melody's mindset changes...the initial preoccupation with suicide; and then a return to her shrill, accusatory self in the gossip-ridden small town. And into the tale come memories of her show more marriage, her deceased mother and a tragic teenage drama.....
"All the marks we ever made will fade away, and all the memories of all the things we ever did will die, and it will be as though we never existed. There's no more to be done, now that we've committed our terminal atrocities. There's nothing to be felt now but a strangely blunt dissonance..."
Fabulous writing. show less

Yeah, another Donal Ryan. And this one, ALL WE SHALL KNOW, is flat out one of the best novels I've read this year. It is simply beautiful writing, full of the flavor, slang, and dialect of modern Ireland. The opening lines grabbed me and wouldn't let go. Here they are -

"Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He's seventeen. I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher."

Yes, I was caught - intrigued. And, in case you're wondering, What's a Traveller? So did I. And I found out, because Ryan's story is full of them. They are an ancient ethnic minority, violent and clannish, once "the royalty of Ireland," very much like the Romany people or Gypsies. Besides Martin Toppy, Ryan gives us his cousin, Mary show more Crothery, who occupies a central - and symbolic - place in this story narrated by Melody Shee, who was wed too young, and whose marriage is now in tatters. This book is something of a departure for Ryan, with its woman narrator, and other central female character, but he pulls it off admirably, creating two of the most memorable women from a male author since Larry McMurtry gave us Aurora and Emma in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT.

Ryan not only knows the female psyche, he also understands the old (despite his own relative youth), and I loved the character of Melody's 72 year-old widowed father, whose day is described thusly -

"He rises early and unstiffens himself as best he can and he manages the stairs the finest if he takes his time and he watches the birds and the brightening sky from the back window and he tightens up the place a bit, and he has his tea and porridge and a cut of toast and marmalade, and he performs his ablutions, and he puts on his corduroy trousers and his polished shoes and his shirt and pullover and jacket, and he goes out the door to Mass."

Yes. It sounds just like an old man's routine. Especially a devout Irish widower's, I suspect.

The chapters are each a week of Melody's pregnancy, and her story unfolds with an inexorable delicacy, building toward a violent yet redemptive and ultimately satisfying conclusion. Just like his other two novels, THE SPINNING HEART and THE THING ABOUT DECEMBER, I absolutely LOVED this book. Only maybe a little more that the other two. If you love beautiful writing, if you love a good story, if you love perfect, flawed characters, READ DONAL RYAN. He's still a young man, but I predict he will become a national treasure. My highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

A married woman finds herself pregnant with the child of a Traveller boy she had been teaching to read. Her marriage ends, she is an outcast in her small Irish town, and she vacillates between feelings of guilt, betrayal, and hope. This was a sad but beautiful read, one in which so many mistakes are made and violence often seems the only answer to life's woes. The details about the Traveller community were fascinating, as was the intricate interior life of Melody, the woman at the center of the story.

The audio narration was excellent, as well.

4.25 stars

Donal Ryan can write, he has absolutely convinced me of that with this book. He is a real craftsman, you can tell by almost every sentence: the style is ingeniously simple, at the same time efficiently expressive, and some passages are of an unparalleled beauty. In fact, the book is one long, inner monologue, by an Irish woman, a 33-year-old teacher, Melody Shee. When the story/monologue starts, Melody appears to be in the 12th week of her pregnancy. The father is not her husband, but a 17-year-old apprentice, a boy from the "Travelers’ community" whom she taught to read and write. It is immediately the end of her marriage, which was already going very badly. And we also find ourselves in Catholic Ireland where adultery and show more extramarital pregnancies are devilish. In other words, the book starts at an absolute low point in Melody's life; she is clearly in an existential crisis: “I don't know why I'm the way I am, or even why I am. I can't see purpose to myself, nor could I ever.” Her monologue gradually adds elements that only reinforce her negative self-image.

The tone reminded me very much of Doris Lessing's introspective novels (especially Memoirs of a Survivor), with also a bit of Albert Camus (The Fall) in it. The strongest are the moments of stillness, in which Ryan shows his impressive literary talent. Only, with this novel he clearly aimed primarily at creating atmosphere (and he certainly succeeded in that), not at analysis or in-depth. That is what makes this novel, and therefore also the character of Melody, rather superficial. Ryan, for example, brings interesting elements to Melody's dealings with the Traveler's community, but even here we remain dissatisfied. That lack of depth also explains why the ending of the story surprises us with its abruptness: Ryan finishes it with what we feel is a much too cheap catharsis. In short: with this 3rd novel, the Irish writer shows that he is certainly one of the better and more interesting writers of the moment, but unfortunately it does not meet all expectations. show less

'All We Shall Know' may be the saddest novel I've ever read. I've loved Donal Ryan's writing in two previous books and, although this one didn't seem like it'd be in my wheelhouse, I'm a sucker for great writing so......

All We Shall Know is a heart-rending trip though the mind of a troubled young Irish lady as she proceeds through a pregnancy. She'd experienced 2 previous miscarriages and the baby's father isn't her husband. She's a good girl, went to university and graduated, but couldn't find a job and ended up doing volunteer work teaching uneducated 'tinker' (Traveler, gypsy) children to read, which is how she found herself getting knocked up by an adolescent gypsy lad. Of course her lower-class husband leaves her, but he was on his show more way out anyway after she'd discovered his porn and prostitute addictions.

So, as the book moves through each week of her pregnancy, we hear of her recriminations over the people she's wronged in her life, her rage at the women of town who have ostracized her, her feelings toward a young lady she befriended, her love of her father...... For awhile, I feared she was going full blown insane as she seemed to sink further and further into her introspective world, but she kept a surprisingly level head for someone so wracked by her past.

This is a novel with such a sense of foreboding that you expect the worst at the end, as her pregnancy is completed. I won't spoil it for you, but if you love great writing with an Irish twist and you don't mind some of the most downbeat prose ever, you should check it out. show less

Because I don't have enough books on Mount TBR I signed up to Your Shelf and one of my three books was Donal Ryan's All We Shall Know. I've never read Ryan before, but his last two books got a whole heap of good press coverage and word of mouth so I figured he'd be a good place to start.
Melody, the main character and narrator, is pregnant by Martin Toppy, a seventeen year old Traveller. A boy she was tutoring. She's driven Pat, her husband away, they've spent years tearing pieces off of one another and this has been one straw too many for him. She's alone with her unborn child and her memories. Of her best friend from childhood Breedie Flynn. Of how Pat and she got together. Of her parents and the death of her mother.
It is a novel all show more about the damage that people can do to one another, intentionally and accidentally.
And it is a really good read. Ryan really gets inside the head of Melody and despite the fact that she does some truly horrendous things I slowly came to understand and empathise with her, to a certain extent. Her past certainly informed who she became and why she is the way she is.
But the fact of the matter is that she did take advantage of a seventeen year old boy, would the reader be so accepting of that behaviour were the sexes reversed? She was in a position of power over him as well. Okay, so technically he is over the age of consent, but it still isn't addressed in the book as much as it could be.
And then there is the depiction of the Travellers, and while for the most part it seems fair and balanced and the Traveller characters themselves all have depth and nuance, I still think that maybe their culture is a bit "othered". Ryan himself says at the end that he did ask people if they thought he did a good job in depicting them, but he doesn't seem to have asked any Travellers themselves.
But those are qualms and issues that a good book should raise, so don't think of them as complaints about the book, instead it is a good thing that the book makes the reader consider things like these.
All in all my first "Your Shelf" book was certainly one that I enjoyed and am glad I read it. show less