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All We Shall Know: A Novel
Unavailable
All We Shall Know: A Novel
Unavailable
All We Shall Know: A Novel
Audiobook6 hours

All We Shall Know: A Novel

Written by Donal Ryan

Narrated by Sonya Macari

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

A breathtaking and redemptive novel from the award-winning and Man Booker nominated author Donal Ryan 

Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. At 33 years-old, she finds herself pregnant with the child of a 17 year-old Traveller boy, Martin Toppy, and not by her husband Pat. Melody was teaching Martin to read, but now he's gone, and Pat leaves too, full of rage. She's trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming, while the past won't let her go. It's a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a bold young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody's life. 

Following the nine months of her pregnancy, All We Shall Know unfolds with emotional immediacy in Melody's fierce, funny, and unforgettable voice, as she contends with her choices, past and present.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 4, 2017
ISBN9781524778637
Unavailable
All We Shall Know: A Novel

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Reviews for All We Shall Know

Rating: 3.75510213877551 out of 5 stars
4/5

49 ratings4 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    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 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
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Better than the Spinning Heart. So a progression of sorts.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    '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 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.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I kind of struggled with this book. I thought the story was fine and in fact, I liked the way the author titled each chapter with the current week in Melody's pregnancy. At times I would find Melody talking to her unborn child about her fears and thoughts for her child. In fact, I was kind of starting to find my groove with the story but what really held me back from fully committing was Melody. I did not find her that appealing. Melody may have been trying to gain sympathy by being the storyteller but she didn't get it from me. Not that I am saying her husband was good. Yet, as the story progressed, I felt like I didn't know truly why Melody fell for Martin. I kept waiting. It was kind of like taking one step forward and two steps backward reading this book. At the midway point I found my interest had been lost and I did not care to continue on.