Room for a Single Lady

by Clare Boylan

To Eugene Rafferty, girls are like money - they have to be saved. Despite living in 1950s Dublin, his three daughters, Bridie, Kitty and Rose, seem doomed to a Victorian childhood. However, as fortunes decline the Rafferty's are forced to take in lodgers and these independent but eccentric outsiders introduce the girls to new experiences - sex and superstition, of spite, of true love and tragedy. For in a world caught between the aftershock of the war and the transforming liberalism of the 1960s there are two states of single, and caught up in the comic and desperate search for a suitable husband, or married and enduring the claustrophobia of suburban life. Evoking the magic of childhood and adolescence with rare subtlety, wit and warmth, ROOM FOR A SINGLE LADY is both delightfully comic and genuinely moving.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Irish Literature

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 20, 1998

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes you shouldn't judge a book by the blurb on the cover - or the synopsis from book sites. It would be very easy to pick this up and read... 'Ireland, in the 50s, a poor family, making ends meet'... and assume that it's going to be all gloom and doom, with a brutal father, a brow beaten mother and some poor whimpering children.
Well, think again. I was delighted by this wonderfully written novel. It made me laugh out loud so many times at the escapades of the family.
With a father who is quite honestly, work-shy and a mother who has her head in the clouds and three wonderfully funny daughters, this is a joy to read. Once the decision has been made to let out the spare room to a suitable single lady - the fun begins and a procession of strange and colourful characters take up residence in the household.
With flashes of pure innocence - the scene where the two youngest daughters investigate the new invention - Tampax, is so funny that I thought about it and chuckled for days afterwards.
I am determined that I will now read everything that Clare Boylan wrote. I was very sad to learn that she died aged 58 in 2006 after suffering with cancer - a real loss.

[Rahul Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outrageous. Delirious. Hilarious. Dotty at best. What a wild ride this book was. I could barely stop myself from gulping pages of this book every time I opened it. We follow an Irish family in Dublin in the 1950s. There is Eugene and Edie with their three little daughters. Eugene is jobless. And the post-war situation has hit the neighbourhood hard with barely any shilling for the next meal. It is then they notice an empty room in their house and decide to let it to a young, single lady. A series of young ladies begin renting but their times are shortlived with one thing or the other going wrong with their presence. Boylan has written such a sad sad book but a book SO ENTERTAINING. She uses the youngest daughter, Rose's perspective to narrate the family's survival in such times. Every page and word exists to show what it was to grow up as a girl during that time. The mess it involved. I was almost chiding myself for laughing my heart out when circumstances were painful for the family and the single ladies who chose to stay with them. I have not stopped talking of this book and its characters to people in real life. I wish I could talk more and give more details but believe me the best way to know about this book is to simply read it. As I have written on the last book I read of hers- very few writers can write a feminist novel as well as Boylan. She understands exactly the technique to write about women and write it in a way that exposes the problem with patriarchy. Unlike many overtly feminist authors I have read, Boylan doesn't get carried away with task to solve patriarchy's problems. She believes in unbundling the problem as such through a story and her characters. She places the onus on the reader to derive the solutions through her complex handling of characters. I am in love with Boylan. SO MUCH!

[Jo Daneman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Similar to Boylan's debut novel "Holy Pictures" "Room for a Single Lady" is about coming of age as a girl in Ireland, but this time in Post-WWII Dublin (later than "Holy Picture.") The family has similarities, a hapless, improvident father, a confused and flighty mother, and daughters who are left mostly to their own devices, except for stringent rules that hark back to more stratified times.

Also similar to "Holy Pictures", Boylan involves Jewish families in the lives of the Catholic Raffertys. The divide between Protestand and Catholic is also highlighted. This book focuses more on the room renters as much as the Rafferty family. Ladies swirl in and out and almost all of them never leave the Rafferty's circle and all of them have shifting fortunes.

This novel was well-received, but I actually prefer "Holy Pictures" for the sheer insanity of the plot. However, "Room for a Single Lady is much more optimistic where "Holy Pictures" ends in hopelessness. Read them both!

Clare Boylan had a busy career as a fiction and non-fiction author as well as a journalist. Sadly passed away at age 58 from a long struggle with ovarian cancer. A shame, one of Ireland's bright lights in literature.

[Sarahtimms · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this poignant tale of a Dublin family getting by in a bygone era, told from the point of view of the youngest member of the family. Bringing up three young girls in the 50's with barely enough money to get by was clearly a struggle. The Father's wish to be seen as a cut above other families had him turning down jobs that he felt unsuitable for a man of his stature and was increased by his laziness, to the detriment of the rest of the family.

[_Eizan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a mediocre book for me , maybe because its not my type yet still. Thinking about the whole thing, l think a 3 star is perfect. The book had some nice parts that were fun to read yet other parts that werent as attractive. Its worth a read but not on the top of my list.

[Rosie Peplow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult to follow in places a d what a sad ending!! Enjoyed following the characters

[Teresa Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book full of wonderful descriptive passages and unusual comparisons, similes and metaphors. Provoked a great deal of discussion at our book group.

[Kerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well looky here...a story about a poor Irish family. (you'll stop me if you've heard this one before...). The premise lays itself out pretty simply...they po’ so they're renting out a spare room to single ladies bc no one liked it so they didn't put a ring on it. (oh f me I just quoted Beyonce. Someone find me a shotgun to eat)

Moving on w less dignity than I had before (which I never knew was possible), Boylan from the start is a decent writer but her choice of prose doesn't always suit my palate. "The air sat like Turkish Delight over our solid houses"?! That doesn't even make coherent sense even to me a person who believes anytime you can slip "Turkish delight" into a sentence you are immediately awarded bonus life points...ESP if done in a gypsy voice. Meow.

When she isn't trying to hard to make a stab a level of intellectual prose that she doesn't always stick the landing on, the story flows well enough, as the flux of mystery women flow in and out of the Rafferty's home, making a profound impact on their daughter with some of the midgets and loose ladies that come thru that door. Sounds like a family reunion from not so long ago for myself.

We all have roommate stories straight from hell.... And I'm sure I'm in plenty of them. But they definitely picked up some winners through this book. A particular fave includes a woman who pees into jars in her room & keeps them there. And once confronted by the narrator’s father, dumps said piss on his head. I don't know if even I've done that. But I only remember so much of my life. So don't quote me there.

Overall, the author means well assuredly, but it's a bland coming of age tale. They may have grown up with the somewhat unusual circumstance of renters, but the impact made by these renters are the same impacts we all experience from different persons and stories in our lives. I could tell stories about my cats more engaging than that of some of the renters.

There are bright moments, such as when the protagonist discovers that her mother can't save the world. I suppose we all go through that understanding of our parents at some point. But up until then you think the American chop suey for dinner and how every cut, scrape and bruise is soothed over equals a capacity to change the world. It does. Just our own world though.

[Anita Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet, easy prose and a simple coming of age story, young girls coming to grips with the foibles of their parents - Eugene, who won't work, takes up with silly schemes, and runs the house (or ruins) with his moods, and Edie, bitter, absent minded, wanting her girls to stay children. No one actually seems to pay these children much heed -except the lodgers, taken in to bring in a little money for food. And the lodgers return, and leave, and enlighten, and help - they become in many ways an extended family.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I look upon this book as a series of short stories woven together by a room to let in an Irish home. It was a very entertaining read. I have never seen this author before and would seek out further books by her.

[Debby · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was one of the books that I did not want it to end .It transported me to that period .All the hardships had a haze over them that made it light ,to be accepted as part of life .Liked the choice of family that is portrayed in the book.They came alive for me .

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up after 50 pages

[Ifeyinwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very descriptive. As seen from the eye of a child. It was ok.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK. Odd writing style. Maeve Binchey she ain't.