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Nuala O'Faolain, Irish author, journalist and broadcaster, 1940-2008
by Linda Martin, Customer Service Bibliographer
Nuala O'Faolain, born March 1, 1940, died in Dublin on Saturday, May 9th 2008 of metastasized lung cancer at the age of 68.
Ms. O'Faolain, who made her home in County Claire and Manhattan, was widely known in Ireland as an opinion columnist for the Irish Times before she expanded her audience with the publication of two memoirs, Are You Somebody (1996), and its sequel, Almost There (2003). She later published a novel, My Dream of You, chronicling the life of an Irish woman researching an 1856 divorce case, and The Story of Chicago May, a carefully researched historical biography of a successful Irish immigrant prostitute known as the "Queen of Crooks."
"Are you Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman", created a sensation as an unsentimental chronicle of Irish life in the 1940-50's, and, especially, the loneliness of women burdened by the misogyny of Irish church, state and family. Written in a critical midlife depression, it unflinchingly assessed the circumstances of her life-what she had been given and the limits of her strength in making something of it-with the bravura, self-destructive drive and humor that seem so essentially Irish.
She was the second of nine surviving children born of a mother who was an avid, if escapist, reader and a bohemian father who wrote newspaper society columns for the Dublin Evening Press. O'Faolain evokes the atmosphere of emotional and physical impoverishment and entrenched alcoholism that stirred her resistance and encumbered her with persistent self-doubt.
She was dismissed from her first convent school for wild behavior, but managed her next school successfully and went on to receive a scholarship to the University College in Dublin where her circle included filmmaker John Huston, Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh and English writer Kingsley Amis. She received a literary degree in Medieval English from the University of Hull in England where her academic brilliance and breadth of reading led to another scholarship and a postgraduate degree in 19th century literature from Oxford.
She began her writing career working for the BBC then returned to Dublin in 1977 to work for Radio Telefis Éireann. Eventually she became a producer of community access programs and, as one of a team, created Plain Times - an award winning series interviewing "ordinary," older women telling their life stories.
This success led to an invitation to write opinion columns for the Irish Times and in 1996 a small publisher offered her the opportunity to gather her columns in book form. She began a preface to the book that grew into a 200 page autobiography, a response, she has said, to the lowest point in her life.
The book received little notice at first, but interest was sparked by a TV appearance. The introduction was quickly republished as Are You Somebody and, within the year, became number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Fired by a fierce intelligence tempered with both her kindness and despair, the book was described in turns as a ruthless, disarming, complicated, and witty biography. Her sense of personal failure, one of her main themes, modulated what could have been a feminist diatribe against cultural and religious failure.
In 1999, having received a scholarship to Yaddo, the New York artist's colony, she wrote My Dream of You (2001), an atmospheric exploration of the themes of her biography and the difficulty of understanding the past. Her heroine, an expatriate travel writer, explores an historical divorce case which unravels her own emotional life.
Until she was diagnosed with cancer, O'Faolain was covering the US presidential election for an Irish Sunday newspaper, focusing on the feminist dilemma it poses for Democratic voters.
O'Faolain's death was prefaced with a compelling interview* by Marian Finucane on RTÉ Radio One in Ireland in which she discussed her terminal illness.
*A transcription of this interview may be found at: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/nuala-o-faolain-interview). NPR stories are also available online: March 14, 2001: Nuala O'Faolain's 'My Dream of You;' March 16, 2003: Nuala O'Faolain; Oct. 21, 2005: Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain; Oct. 22, 2005: 'The Story of Chicago May': An Irish Life.
Below please find a list of books related to Nuala O'Faolain. For your convenience, this list is also available in a MS Excel spreadsheet. click here.
ARE YOU SOMEBODY: THE ACCIDENTAL MEMOIR OF DUBLIN WOMAN
• AUTHOR: O'FAOLAIN, NUALA
• PUBLISHER: HENRY HOLT
• LC CLASS: PN5146.039A3 1998
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• $21.00 Cloth (307 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9780805056631
• B&T YBP
MY DREAM OF YOU
• AUTHOR: O'FAOLAIN, NUALA
• PUBLISHER: RIVERHEAD BOOKS PUTNAM
• LC CLASS: PR6065.F33W48 2001
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• $25.95 Cloth (500 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9781573221771
• B&T YBP
ALMOST THERE: THE ONWARD JOURNEY OF A DUBLIN WOMAN
• AUTHOR: O'FAOLAIN, NUALA
• PUBLISHER: RIVERHEAD BOOKS PUTNAM
• LC CLASS: PN5146.O39A3 2003
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• $24.95 Cloth (275 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9781573222419
• B&T YBP
STORY OF CHICAGO MAY
• AUTHOR: O'FAOLAIN, NUALA
• PUBLISHER: RIVERHEAD BOOKS PUTNAM
• LC CLASS: HV6248.D85O43 2005
• CONTENT LEVEL: GEN-AC
• $24.95 Cloth (307 P.)
• ISBN-13: 9781573223201
• B&T YBP
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