Ghost Songs

June 6, 2016
This soul-wrenching memoir by novelist McBridge (The Land of Women) recounts the author’s time in a psychiatric ward at age 18, after her parents’ suicides, as she gets to know the other patients and copes with a flood of memories, both happy and sad, of her life before her parents’ deaths. McBride’s memoir contains lush details, but sometimes the multitude of memories overwhelms the narrative and takes away from the otherwise powerful depiction of a teenager understanding the complexity of newfound adult responsibility, poverty, and her parents’ identity, while coming to terms with the trauma of loss and her encounters with the miraculous. McBride discusses how theater and a concerned acting teacher try to help Regina cope with these problems, but it is ultimately a visit to Ireland that helps her understand her feelings and become whole again. Agent: Ellen Levine and Alexa Stark, Trident Media Group.

A novelist and poet tells the fragmented story of how she came to terms with the suicides of her father and then her mother.The memoir opens with an 18-year-old McBride (The Fire Opal, 2012, etc.) in a psychiatric hospital struggling to cope with the deaths of her parents. Moving back and forth through time, the author examines her past in an attempt to understand it and the parents who shaped it. The daughter of two Irish Catholic parents who "lov[ed] and miss[ed]" an Ireland they had never seen, McBride bore witness to the traumatic disintegration of her family over time. The problems began when her father, Vincent, did not get the well-paying job he and McBride's mother, Barbara, expected. The family was forced to move out of the big house in Yonkers that her parents had bought in expectation of Vincent's success. They traveled to Santa Fe along with McBride's senile, often cruel grandmother Nanny. Meanwhile, Vincent continued to struggle professionally. Unable to advance in his career, he took a second job as a bartender and began to drift into alcoholism while Barbara became increasingly unstable and Nanny more demented and embittered. After Nanny's death, the situation between McBride's parents only worsened, with Barbara threatening suicide and becoming more violent toward her husband, who eventually shot himself. Five months later, Barbara shot herself as well and "died without a face." Haunted both literally and figuratively by her parents' ghosts, McBride eventually sold everything she owned and moved to Ireland, where she was determined to live and make peace with her parents and her past. Harrowing yet beautiful, the book is not only an exploration of the interplay between memory and imagination. It is also an eloquent meditation on the painful burdens of the past that parents bequeath their children. A wrenchingly lyrical memoir of family and tragedy. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from September 1, 2016
By all measures, McBride (The Marriage Bed, 2004) suffered a difficult, nearly catastrophic childhood. Along with her siblings, she was at the center of a toxic familial whirlwind, subjected to alcohol-fueled bickering between their parents exacerbated by a difficult live-in grandmother who puts Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to shame. Opening in a psychiatric ward, McBride's lyrical memoir focuses on her eighteenth year and catalogs her struggle to rid herself of lingering pain from her parents' separate suicides within months of each other, and her own misplaced guilt over failing to somehow save them and adequately support her younger sisters. Moving back and forth in time, McBride ponders her memories of growing up and floundering into adulthood. Visited by ghosts she tries to deny, she embraces her heritage and travels to Ireland in search of a way to put her father's spirit to rest. She repeatedly returns to images and memories of her parentshappy, furious, disappointed, and damaged. Clearly, no one came out of that household alive, not really, and this memoir of survival is even more about reinvention than reflecting on the past. Harrowing, sincere, and unforgettable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2016

Dubbed a literary Maeve Binchy by an LJ reviewer, novelist McBride (The Nature of Water and Air) lost her parents to suicide in quick succession when she was only 16. Her subsequent hunt for comfort and belonging took her from New York City to New Mexico to Ireland, where she reconnected with her roots and the gorgeous Irish lore that informs her writing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 15, 2016

The elements of novelist McBride's (The Nature of Water and Air) story are not unusual for a memoir: tragedy, a sense of alienation from remaining family, a self-imposed hospital stay, escape to a new place fraught with meaning, even ghostly hallucinations. But the rapid back-and-forth descriptions of the author's experience, from the teenager clawing her way forward after the tragic deaths of her parents and childhood recollections of her deeply troubled family, pull readers into the suffocating realm of her anguish. McBride resists a cohesive, comforting narrative, instead relating snippets of memory. She does not speculate expansively on her parents' inner lives, nor interpret the actions of others. Her remembrances stand alone, giving the book an epistolary quality. As McBride wades through her grief, flashbacks of events and images from her youth must now be viewed through the lens of her parents' suicides. The short sections and regular visits to the past may leave some craving a more cohesive time line, but most memoir connoisseurs will want to read this. VERDICT Book groups will find much to discuss if they're willing to broach the topics in this beautifully rendered work. [See Prepub Alert, 4/25/16.]--Kate Sheehan, C.H. Booth Lib., Newtown, CT

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2016

Novelist McBride's memoir contains tragedy, alienation from family, a hospital stay, escape, even ghostly hallucinations. But the rapid back-and-forth between the teenager clawing her way forward after the deaths of her parents and childhood memories of her troubled family pull readers into her anguish. McBride resists a linear narrative. She does not speculate expansively on her parents' inner lives, or ascribe meaning to others' actions. Her memories stand alone, giving the book an epistolary quality. VERDICT Compelling, beautifully told, and likely to stay with readers for a long time. Book groups will have much to discuss. (LJ 6/15/16)--Kate Sheehan

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2016

Novelist McBride's memoir contains tragedy, alienation from family, a hospital stay, escape, even ghostly hallucinations. But the rapid back-and-forth between the teenager clawing her way forward after the deaths of her parents and childhood memories of her troubled family pull readers into her anguish. McBride resists a linear narrative. She does not speculate expansively on her parents' inner lives, or ascribe meaning to others' actions. Her memories stand alone, giving the book an epistolary quality. VERDICT Compelling, beautifully told, and likely to stay with readers for a long time. Book groups will have much to discuss. (LJ 6/15/16)--Kate Sheehan

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.