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Hood
by
Emma Donoghue (Goodreads Author)
A tale of grief and lust, frustration and hilarity, death and family.
Penelope O’Grady and Cara Wall are risking disaster when, like teenagers in any intolerant time and place—here, a Dublin convent school in the late 1970s—they fall in love. Yet Cara, the free spirit, and Pen, the stoic, craft a bond so strong it seems as though nothing could sever it: not the bickering, n...more
Penelope O’Grady and Cara Wall are risking disaster when, like teenagers in any intolerant time and place—here, a Dublin convent school in the late 1970s—they fall in love. Yet Cara, the free spirit, and Pen, the stoic, craft a bond so strong it seems as though nothing could sever it: not the bickering, n...more
Published
(first published 1995)
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Starting on Sunday when Pen finds out that her lover has suddenly died in a car accident the book chronicles the first 6 days of her grieving. The story traverses back and forth over the course of their 13-year relationship - from their days together as "sort-of-girlfriends" in an Irish convent school to their late 20-somethings living together as "fairly faithful" lovers in Dublin. The book reads beautifully - often feeling more like poetry than prose - and yet maintains a gritty, rough-around-...more
I wrote a mini-thesis on this book in my post modern lesbian art class in college. it was The best class Ever, and i think it may be my favorite project ever, after my high school paper on As I Lay Dying. Anyway, everyone should read this book.
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*SPOILER ALERTS*
A great insight into the lesbian culture of Dublin. A great love story.
The story deals with Pen. Who just lost her first and only love in a car crash, Cara. Cara is/was a beautiful red head Pen has known since grade school. It goes back in time and tells the story of their history, while also dealing with Pen's first week of grief with out Cara.
It is a beautiful story of love lost both through death and through most of Cara and Pen's entire on/off relationship of 14 years togeth...more
A great insight into the lesbian culture of Dublin. A great love story.
The story deals with Pen. Who just lost her first and only love in a car crash, Cara. Cara is/was a beautiful red head Pen has known since grade school. It goes back in time and tells the story of their history, while also dealing with Pen's first week of grief with out Cara.
It is a beautiful story of love lost both through death and through most of Cara and Pen's entire on/off relationship of 14 years togeth...more
Not my cup of tea....The story is about a woman who loses her partner (another woman) and the grieving process she goes through. I just couldn't find myself relating or buying into the realtionship these two woman had.
Apr 25, 2013
Ashley
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
adults,
queer-content
This book made me feel as desperately and inconsolably sad as I felt as a teenager about, well, basically anything and everything. Donoghue's descriptions of Pen's surroundings, her actions, and her memories were so visceral I couldn't help but feel in tandem with the character experiencing them all. It was a rough couple of days, reading this one. The only thing that shocked me out of it--and out of putting it on my books-i-love-more-than-people shelf--was the passage about red wings. I'm not s...more
I read Hood ages ago, but was reminded of it when I found out that Emma Donoghue had been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize for her new novel Room (woo hoo!). The story takes place immediately after closeted Catholic boarding school teacher Pen O'Grady's long-term partner Cara Wall is killed in a car accident. As Pen struggles through the first week, a complex portrait of her youth and her relationship with Cara emerges out of a storm of memories and funereal obligations.
The book moves very...more
The book moves very...more
May 23, 2008
Jill
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Lesbians, people grieving
Shelves:
glbtq
I first came across this book in the library when as a high schooler I had to find lesbian books covert enough to check out without feeling guilty. I loved this book. I based a lot of my choices and goals in life on what I discovered in Hood. It is a wrenching story of personal grief, but told so eloquently that you feel empathy rather than pity. I've read it a number of times since, mostly at turning points in my relationship life, and it never ceases to be a point of hope for me.
How do you handle the days following the death of your lover of 13 years, when neither your family or her father know you're a couple?
In Hood, Pen has lost Cara, the woman she's loved since high school. While Pen was always faithful to Cara, Cara had many other lovers. For Pen, Cara was all she needed; for Cara, Pen was the sun she orbited and kept returning to.
Part of the reason this relationship worked is that Pen is disturbingly passive. Her and Cara remain closeted about their relationship,...more
In Hood, Pen has lost Cara, the woman she's loved since high school. While Pen was always faithful to Cara, Cara had many other lovers. For Pen, Cara was all she needed; for Cara, Pen was the sun she orbited and kept returning to.
Part of the reason this relationship worked is that Pen is disturbingly passive. Her and Cara remain closeted about their relationship,...more
one of the best books I've read in a long while, and my favorite of Emma Donoghue's. the book is so rich with the protagonist's inner life. I actually don't want to summarize it, because the discovery of the premise is one of the more well-crafted parts of the novel, but I will say this: it's a meditation on family, loss, confidence, truth-telling, and love. it's powerful and emotional, evocative and finely detailed. this goes on my lifetime top 10.
I loved Donoghue's Room & Slammerkin, so I was excited to read Hood. The story is a week in the life of Pen, a 30 year old woman mourning the loss of her lover, Cara. This loss & its pain is further complicated by the fact that not only did Cara have other lovers (although she and Pen share a home--with Cara's father), but also that the reality of their relationship as partners, not simply best friends since high school, is not public knowledge, therefore Pen bears her grief, essentially...more
1 like · like · see review
One of my favorite books. I love the character studies of Pen and Cara. Although I didn't like Cara very much, I was impressed with how Emma Donoghue created such a complex character and showed how different she looked through different people's eyes.
A water dripping faucet silent journey from a dark place into light.
http://softbound.blogspot.com/2012/06...
"When Pen O'Grady moved in with the Walls four years ago, she was sure that she and her long time on-and-off lover Cara Wall would remain together, sharing discussions until they are old and weak . That was her vision until one Sunday morning when she receives a phone call from a hospital informing her that Cara has passed away from a car accident. Suddenly, Pen is alone and left with responsibilities and concerns like that of a widow's though practically...more
"When Pen O'Grady moved in with the Walls four years ago, she was sure that she and her long time on-and-off lover Cara Wall would remain together, sharing discussions until they are old and weak . That was her vision until one Sunday morning when she receives a phone call from a hospital informing her that Cara has passed away from a car accident. Suddenly, Pen is alone and left with responsibilities and concerns like that of a widow's though practically...more
Intriguing book. Normally, the premise of loss and grief is not my cup of tea, but I was moreso interested in exploring the layers of Pen and how she'd cope with her identity and moving forward in life now that her partner was no longer there. In some ways, I found myself relating to Pen, seeing bits of myself in her and thus, I think that's what captured me the most about this book. I didn't quite get behind Pen and Cara's trivial relationship. Then again, I could never be okay with being polyg...more
Written by the author of Room and Slammerkin, Hood is a moving story of love and loss. Taking place during the week of Cara Wall’s funeral, the reader finds themselves at the mercy of Pen O’Grady’s, Cara’s lover of 13 years, sometimes tumultuous, most of the time lacking emotions. Using flashbacks and the days of the week, Donoghue tells the story of Pen and Cara’s relationship while showing Pen’s coping (or lack thereof) with Cara’s death.
The novel takes place in Ireland during the late 1990s,...more
The novel takes place in Ireland during the late 1990s,...more
I didn’t realize this book was written more than 15 years ago until I had finished it.
I had thought it was a new release. The cover told me it was a novel by the author of Room, a book published in 2010, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a trade paperback edition, which seemed new. But after I finished it, something in the author’s note and the questions and answers in the back of the book made me look at the publication date.
It was 1995.
Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, which like so man...more
I had thought it was a new release. The cover told me it was a novel by the author of Room, a book published in 2010, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a trade paperback edition, which seemed new. But after I finished it, something in the author’s note and the questions and answers in the back of the book made me look at the publication date.
It was 1995.
Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, which like so man...more
This book is hard to rate. It was pretty much a complete downer as it is, above all else, a story about losing a loved one. Yet, somewhere near the end I found myself caring for Pen, the protagonist, which was surprising since for most of the book I just wanted to shake her so she'd stop being such a darn wimp. We are taken along with her through her stages of grief within a span of a week after Cara, her on & off partner for the last 13 years, dies suddenly. We're also taken through their r...more
Brilliant. This might be the best-written book I've read, certainly in a long while. Still, it might not be for everyone. It's about grief, and I'm a sucker for a good grief story. It tells a week in the life of Pen (Penelope) after the death of her lover Cara. Set in 1992 (and looking back from there) in Dublin, I couldn't help but wonder, had Cara survived, might their relationship be recognized today. Pen is a closeted teacher at a Catholic girls' school so there are layers and layers to her...more
Interesting book about an Irish lesbian couple who've been together 13 years, and how one of them copes with her grief (or lack thereof) when the other is killed in a car accident. I was kind of put off with how negative Pen was; in fact, all of the characters were on the negative side. And at one point, Emma Donoghue made fun of the way Americans talk. Really, Emma? I could very easily pick apart every Irish and Britishism you say in this book, starting with "come round", but I won't.
All that a...more
All that a...more
Written about a time when the word "partner" was not used, this book explores the complexities of grief and loss. Pen and Cara were lovers in an Ireland where same-sex relationships were still kept firmly "in" the closet. The book focuses on the one week after Cara's death in a car crash, and how Pen copes with the grief, while never being able to express some of it. At the same time she discovers strength and support in unexpected places. Some strong writing, some rambling.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
The publisher reprinted this novel after the success of "Room." It takes place in the course of a week after the narrator's lover died, but it focuses on the many years of their relationship. As with all her books, this one is very well done, filled with great prose and emotional moments. I found the narrator interesting since her view of life is very different than mine. This makes me look forward to Donoghue's next book, which is due out this fall.
Just finished reading it; the book kind of depressed me overall despite of ms Donoghue excellent writing. The atmosphere was somewhat grim and sad but it's understandable given the subject. I especially liked the portrayal of Pen as the clumsy and plump closeted teacher and her relationship with mr Wall. A good book overall, maybe I had too high hopes after having read "Landing" which had a much lighter mood to it.
This is a book that just worked for me, both as a story and as a teaching device for my own writing. I've read three books by Donoghue, and all her characters are flawed, but this book seems the most effective use of imperfect characters, and what's amazing I was still drawn and could relate to them all. The structure, too, worked well, and though I thought it would bother me, the transitions in and out of the flashbacks (as literal flashbacks for Pen) felt smooth, and each one added another lay...more
One of my book clubs read this. It is a lesbian love story set in Dublin. The book seemed really gray to me, really somber--one of the lovers has just died--and I was apparently not in the right mood for this. Catholic Dublin of the 1990s seemed to me to be an oppressive place, and Pen's life--even before Cara's death--was bleak. I wanted some entertainment and didn't find it here.
I just really couldn't get into this book, mostly because I don't think the author really got all that deep into really letting the reader know the characters, particularly Pen and Cara. I just wanted more. As I read through I had a really tough time buying into this relationship between Pen and Cara. It painted a good picture of how isolating it must be to live closeted.
Nice surprise! This is early book by the writer of Room, written in 1995, but probably set in the early 1980's in Dublin. A character-driven narrative, as they say, it really captures a 30 year old teacher at a convent school, a closeted lesbian with an unevenly requited love for her "sort-of-girlfriend". Funny, sad, and bittersweet.
Dec 03, 2008
Maureen McMahon
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
fiction lovers, lesbians, newly widowed
Recommended to Maureen by:
ALA for teens
I read this as another stop on my lesbian young adult fiction express. It's well done, written by a british phd in english. There are some illogical choices towards the end, but it is a very interesting study of grief and the challenges of contemporary identity issues in old mother Ireland. Pretty steamy at times!
Emma Donoghue is such an incredible writer, her book ROOM is one of the best things I've ever read, so that's hard to beat, but this one was awfully good. Such a realistic, sometimes hard to read, novel about grief and loss. I found parts of it a little confusing, but all in all, it was really good and real and beautiful.
Great book by the author of ROOM. Her name was why I picked it up. The loss of someone close very suddenly mixes with the pain of coming out to friends, co-workers, family so that they even KNOW you've lost your lover of 13 years.
Very sensitive and focused on feelings more than a linearity of plot.
Very sensitive and focused on feelings more than a linearity of plot.
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Emma is the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue. She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin, and in 1997 a PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of...more
More about Emma Donoghue...
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