The Promise - Hardcover

A novel of memory and regret from Irish author Ryan (Mask of the Night, 1997; etc.). Colm Nugent is a wealthy Dublin stockbroker whose market is more likely to be found in the pages of The Financial Times than in the village square of Tralee, but he grew up tending cattle in Roscommon all the same. A bright boy whose many illnesses allowed him to devote almost his entire childhood to books and study, Colm won a scholarship to a local boarding school and had grand ambitions from an early age. They were largely fulfilled, but now, in middle age, hes reached a dead end. His son Alan was killed in a cycling accident some years ago; his wife Sherry has just left him for another man; and Colm himself has had a mild heart attack that leaves him wondering what the point of his life has been. As is usual in such moments, his thoughts go back to first lovein his case, meaning Italy, which he first visited as a 22-year-old in the summer of 1968. There, he met Robin McKay, an 18-year-old American also on her first trip abroad. Wild, impetuous, and more than slightly unstable, Robin becomes Colms partner and guide as he discovers the glories of art, history, foodand sex. Although he loses contact with Robin after returning home, he never forgets her, and he recalls that they had made a half-serious vow to meet in Florence in 1996 for Colms 50th birthday. Italys as good a place to recuperate as anywhere else, so Colm goes back after 28 years. Will he rediscover Robin? Or will he finally find himself? Theres a lot of history south of the Alps, after all, and not all of it has to do with the Caesars. Soap opera with good local color (both Italian and Irish): a story that will be convincing only to someone who wants a good cry and doesnt need much prodding. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From a bestselling author in Ireland, this romantic novel portrays the midlife spiritual crisis of a repressed, divorced stockbroker yearning for his lost youth. After Colm Nugent's long-suffering wife accuses him of being "cold" and leaves him after 21 years of marriage, just shy of his 50th birthday, he dreams about Robin McKay, a feisty American with whom he fell in love while backpacking though Italy in 1968. Recovering from a mild coronary, Colm embarks on a nostalgic holiday to Italy to reencounter the life that once held such promise, and perhaps to find the lost Robin. He enrolls in a language course and takes up residence with teacher Paola Nosterini, a beautiful, soulful widow and mother of an ailing child, who, coincidentally, shares a past with Colm. Ryan braids the narrative of Colm's return to Italy in search of absolution with flashbacks to his harrowing experience as a young student sexually abused by a pedophiliac priest and the wondrous summer of love spent in Florence with Robin, who has her own burdensome secrets. Burrowing deep into blocked memories, Colm faces his guilt over having left Robin in a Florentine hospital, never knowing whether she lived or died. They had promised to meet again in Florence on their shared birthdays the year he turned 50Aand now he hopes to fulfill his pledge. Ryan (Glenallen) evokes youthful love and midlife crisis with workaday, sometimes florid prose. As she gradually reveals details in flashback, however, the story acquires complexity and depth. The coincidental events in the denouement demand the reader's indulgence, but Paola sums up the novel's weepy lesson: "Everything that happens is eternal and is thrown up again, sooner or later... like the small stones in the sea." (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.