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The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (New York Review Books Classics) Kindle Edition
This underrated classic of contemporary Irish literature tells the “utterly transfixing” story of a lonely, poverty-stricken spinster in 1950s Belfast (The Boston Globe)
Judith Hearne is an unmarried woman of a certain age who has come down in society. She has few skills and is full of the prejudices and pieties of her genteel Belfast upbringing. But Judith has a secret life. And she is just one heartbreak away from revealing it to the world.
Hailed by Graham Greene, Thomas Flanagan, and Harper Lee alike, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is an unflinching and deeply sympathetic portrait of a woman destroyed by self and circumstance. First published in 1955, it marked Brian Moore as a major figure in English literature (he would go on to be short-listed three times for the Booker Prize) and established him as an astute chronicler of the human soul.
“Seldom in modern fiction has any character been revealed so completely or been made to seem so poignantly real.” —The New York Times
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNYRB Classics
- Publication dateAugust 17, 2011
- File size644 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
—Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Globe
“Remarkable . . . seldom in modern fiction has any character been revealed so completely or been made to seem so poignantly real.”
—The New York Times
“A powerful haunting story by a young Irish-Canadian who knows the meaning not only of loneliness, but that of compassion as well.”
—The New York Times
“Moore has absolute control over his narrative, and Judith Hearne’s descent is both excruciating and enthralling.”
—Anne Enright in O, The Oprah Magazine
“A penetrating, comic, tragic tale of a plain woman…It is a novel that occasionally sings with the lilt of the Irish greats.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Brian Moore [wrote] a superb first novel; The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne reads as freshly, and as heart-breakingly, today as it did when it first appeared in 1955.”
—John Banville
“The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is, to my notion, everything a novel should be.”
—Harper Lee, The New York Times (1960)
“Each book of [Moore’s] is dangerous, unpredictable, and amusing. He treats the novel as a trainer treats a wild beast.”
—Graham Greene
“Moore is surely one of the most versatile and compelling novelists writing today.”
—Daily Telegraph
“I can’t think of another living male novelist who writes about women with such sympathy and understanding.”
—Times Literary Supplement
“A harrowing tour de force.”
—New Statesman and Nation
From the Publisher
Brian Moore's extraordinary talent was immediately recognised when The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, his debut novel, won the Authors' Club First Novel Award. A highly-acclaimed film based on the novel was recently made, starring Maggie Smith.
'I can't think of another living male novelist who writes about women with such sympathy and understanding.' Times Literary Supplement
'Remarkable... seldom in modern fiction has any character been revealed so completely or been made to seem so poignantly real.' New York Times
'An almost classic example of the power given by unity of theme... Mr Moore reveals all the qualities of a born novelist.' Sunday Times
From the Inside Flap
Alone in her room in a Belfast boarding house, Judith Hearne is almost overwhelmed by loneliness. Yet she still believes there is a chance for happiness, and she waits patiently for the moment when her life will turn from sorrowful longing to joy. By chance she meets a man ? the man ? and her dreams take on a brighter hue, only to be dashed once more.
With skill and gentle insight, Moore depicts the disintegration of Judith Hearne?s last illusions. Clinging to the bottle for comfort, she becomes a tragic figure who speaks frankly about the human condition. Though we laugh at her foibles, we weep at her plight, and share her primal longing for love and connection.
This touching story was made into a critically acclaimed motion picture in 1987.
From the Back Cover
–New York Times
About the Author
While living in Canada, Moore wrote his first three novels, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, The Feast of Lupercal, and The Luck of Ginger Coffey, the first two set in Belfast, the third in Montreal. In 1959 he moved to the United States, but Canada continued to play a role in his later novels, including I Am Mary Dunne, The Great Victorian Collection, and Black Robe. His many honours included two Governor General’s Awards for Fiction.
Brian Moore died in Malibu, California, in 1999.
From the Paperback edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The first thing Miss Judith Hearne unpacked in her new lodgings was the silver-framed photograph of her aunt. The place for her aunt, ever since the sad day of the funeral, was on the mantelpiece of whatever bedsitting room Miss Hearne happened to be living in. And as she put her up now, the photograph eyes were stern and questioning, sharing Miss Hearne’s own misgivings about the condition of the bedsprings, the shabbiness of the furniture and the run-down part of Belfast in which the room was situated.
After she had arranged the photograph so that her dear aunt could look at her from the exact centre of the mantelpiece, Miss Hearne unwrapped the white tissue paper which covered the coloured oleograph of the Sacred Heart. His place was at the head of the bed, His fingers raised in benediction, His eyes kindly yet accusing. He was old and the painted halo around His head was beginning to show little cracks. He had looked down on Miss Hearne for a long time, almost half her lifetime.
The trouble about hanging the Sacred Heart, Miss Hearne discovered, was that there was no picture hook in the right place. She had bought some picture hooks but she had no hammer. So she laid the Sacred Heart down on the bed and went to the bay window to see how the room looked from there.
The street outside was a university bywater, once a good residential area, which had lately been reduced to the level of taking in paying guests. Miss Hearne stared at the houses opposite and thought of her aunt’s day when there were only private families in this street, at least one maid to every house, and dinner was at night, not at noon. All gone now, all those people dead and all the houses partitioned off into flats, the bedrooms cut in two, kitchenettes jammed into linen closets, linoleum on the floors and “To Let” cards in the bay windows. Like this house, she thought. This bed-sitting room must have been the master bedroom. Or even a drawing room. And look at it now. She turned from the window to the photograph on the mantelpiece. All changed, she told it, all changed since your day. And I’m the one who has to put up with it.
But then she shook her head to chase the silly cobwebs from her mind. She walked across the room, inspecting the surface. The carpet wasn’t bad at all, just a bit worn in the middle part, and a chair could be put there. The bed could be moved out an inch from the wall to hide that stain. And there on the bed was the Sacred Heart, lying face down, waiting to be put up in His proper place. Nothing for it, Miss Hearne said to herself, but to go down and ask the new landlady for the loan of a hammer.
Down she went, down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen which was used as a sitting room by Mrs Henry Rice. She knocked on the curtained door and Mrs Henry Rice drew the edge of the curtain aside to peek through the glass before she opened the door. Miss Hearne thought that a little rude, to say the least.
“Yes, Miss Hearne?”
Beyond the open door Miss Hearne saw a good fire in the grate and a set of china tea things on a table.
“I wondered if you had a hammer you might lend me. It’s to put up a picture, you know. I’m terribly sorry to be troubling you like this.”
“No trouble at all,” Mrs Henry Rice said. “But I have a head like a sieve. I never can remember where I put things. I’ll just have to think now. Listen, why don’t you come in and sit down? Maybe you’d like a cup of tea. I just wet some tea this minute.”
Well, that really was a nice gesture to start things off. Very nice indeed. “That’s very kind of you,” Miss Hearne said. “But I hate to put you out like this, really I do. I only wanted to put my picture up, you see.”
But as she said this she advanced across the threshold. It was always interesting to see how other people lived and, goodness knows, a person had to have someone to talk to. Of course, some landladies could be friendly for their own ends. Like Mrs Harper when I was on Cromwell Road and shethought I was going to help her in that tobacconist business. Still Mrs Henry Rice doesn’t look that type. Such a big jolly person, and very nicely spoken.
The room was not in the best of taste, Miss Hearne saw at once. But cosy. Lots of little lace doilies on the tables and lamps with pretty pastel shades. There was a big enamel china dog on the mantelpiece and a set of crossed flags on the wall. Papal flags with silver paper letters underneath that said: eucharistic congress dublin. That was in 1932, in the Phoenix Park, Miss Hearne remembered, and my second cousin, once removed, sang in the choir at High Mass. Nan D’Arcy, God rest her soul, a sudden end, pleurisy, the poor thing. John McCormack was the tenor. A thrilling voice. A Papal count.
“Sit up close to the fire now. It’s perishing cold out,” Mrs Henry Rice said. A Dublin voice, Miss Hearne thought. But not quite. She has a touch of the North in her accent.
Miss Hearne saw that there were two wing chairs pushed close to the fire. She went toward one of them and it turned around and a man was in it.
He was a horrid-looking fellow. Fat as a pig he was, and his face was the colour of cottage cheese. His collar was unbuttoned and his silk tie was spotted with egg stain. His stomach stuck out like a sagging pillow and his little thin legs fell away under it to end in torn felt slippers. He was all bristly blond jowls, tiny puffy hands and long blond curly hair, like some monstrous baby swelled to man size.
“This is Bernard, my only boy,” said Mrs Henry Rice. “This is Miss Hearne, Bernie. Remember, I told you about her coming to stay with us?”
He stared at Miss Hearne with bloodshot eyes, rejecting her as all males had before him. Then he smiled, showing dirty yellow teeth.
“Come and sit by the fire, Miss Hearne,” he said. “Take the other chair. Mama won’t mind.”
Rejected, Miss Hearne sat down, fiddled with her garnet rings, moved her thin legs together and peered for comfort at her long, pointed shoes with the little buttons on them, winking up at her like wise little friendly eyes. Little shoe eyes, always there.
“Sugar and cream?” Mrs Henry Rice asked, bending over the tea things.
“Two lumps, please. And just a soupçon of cream,” Miss Hearne said, smiling her thanks.
“Cup of tea, Bernie?”
“No, thanks, Mama,” the fat man said. His voice was soft and compelling and it shocked Miss Hearne that this ugly pudding should possess it. It reminded her of the time she had seen Beniamino Gigli, the Italian tenor. A fat, perspiring man with a horrid face, wiping the perspiration away with a white handkerchief. And then, when he opened his mouth, you forgot everything and he became a wonderful angel, thrilling everyone in the theatre, from the front stalls to the gods. When Bernard spoke, you wanted to listen.
“Just a little cup, dear?”
“No, Mama.”
“Miss Hearne.” Mrs Henry Rice handed a teacup with the little silver teaspoon clattering in the saucer. Miss Hearne steadied the spoon and smiled her thanks.
“And have you lived long in Belfast, did you say?” Mrs Henry Rice said, poking the fire into a good blaze.
“Oh, since I was a child, yes,” Miss Hearne said. “You see, my aunt lived here, although my parents lived in Ballymena.”
“I see,” said Mrs Henry Rice, who did not see. “And whereabouts did your aunt live? Was it on this side of the city?”
“Oh, yes,” Miss Hearne said. “It was on the Lisburn Road. You see, my parents died when I was very young and my dear aunt, rest her soul, took me to live with her in Belfast.”
“Well, we all have to move around,” Mrs Henry Rice said. “I was born and raised myself in Donegal, in a little place called Creeslough. And then, when I was only a bit of a girl, I was packed off to Dublin to attend a secretarial college. And lived there with an uncle of mine. And met my late husband there. And then, Mr Rice, that’s my late husband, he was posted from Dublin to Belfast. And here I am. It just goes to show you, we all have to run from pillar to post, and you never know where you’ll end up.”
“Indeed,” Miss Hearne said. “But it must have been interesting for you, living in Dublin for so many years.”
“Oh, Dublin’s a grand city, no doubt about it. I’ve never been what you might call fond of Belfast. Of course, it’s not the same for you. You’d have lots of friends here. Is your poor aunt dead long?”
“A few years ago,” Miss Hearne said guardedly.
“And do you have relatives here?” Mrs Henry Rice asked, offering a plate of Jacob’s cream puff biscuits.
“Not close relatives,” Miss Hearne said, fencing her way over familiar ground. They were all a bit nosey, landladies, it was to be expected, of course. They had to know what class of people they were getting, and a good thing too. You couldn’t blame them.
“My aunt came from a very old Belfast family,” she said. “They’ve nearly all died out now, but they have a very interesting history, my aunt’s people. For instance, they’re all buried out in Nun’s Bush. That’s one of the oldest cemeteries in the country. Full up now. It’s closed, you know.”
“Well, that’s interesting,” Mrs Henry Rice said, uninterested. “Have a bikky, Bernie?”
“No thanks, Mama.”
He yawned, patting the opened circle of his mouth with a puffy hand. Above the yawn his eyes, unblinking, watched Miss Hearne, bringing the hot blood to her face.
“I do believe I’ll just throw off this cardigan, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll hold your cup,” Mrs Henry Rice offered amiably. “This room does get a little hot with a good fire going. But Bernie feels the cold a lot, always has.”
Who does he think he is, no manners, staring like that. Give him a stiff look myself. But no, no, he’s still looking. Upsetting. Turn to something else. That book, beside him, upside down, it’s esrev, verse, yes, English Century Seventeenth. Reading it, yes, he has a bookmark in it.
“I see you’re interested in poetry, Mr Rice.”
“Oh, Bernie’s a poet. And always studying. He’s at the university.”
“I am not at the university, Mama,” the fat man said. “I haven’t been at Queen’s for five years.”
“Bernie’s a little delicate, Miss Hearne. He had to stop his studies a while back. Anyway, I think the boys work too hard up there at Queen’s. I always say it’s better to take your time. A young fellow like Bernie has lots of time, no need to rush through life. Take your time and you’ll live longer.”
That fatty must be thirty, if he’s a day, Miss Hearne told herself. Something about him. Not a toper, but something. Oh, the cross some mothers have to bear.
And the cross brought back the Sacred Heart, lying on the bed in the room upstairs, waiting for a hammer to nail Him up. Still, it was nice to sit here in front of a good warm fire with a cup of tea in your hand. And besides, Mrs Henry Rice and this horrid fatty would make an interesting tale to tell when she saw the O’Neills.
For it was important to have things to tell which interested your friends. And Miss Hearne had always been able to find interesting happenings where other people would find only dullness. It was, she often felt, a gift which was one of the great rewards of a solitary life. And a necessary gift. Because, when you were a single girl, you had to find interesting things to talk about. Other women always had their children and shopping and running a house to chat about. Besides which, their husbands often told them interesting stories. But a single girl was in a different position. People simply didn’t want to hear how she managed things like accommodation and budgets. She had to find other subjects and other subjects were mostly other people. So people she knew, people she had heard of, people she saw in the street, people she had read about, they all had to be collected and gone through like a basket of sewing so that the most interesting bits about them could be picked out and fitted together to make conversation. And that was why even a queer fellow like this Bernard Rice was a blessing in his own way. He was so funny and horrible with his “Yes, Mama,” and “No, Mama,” and his long blond baby hair. He’d make a tale for the O’Neills at Sunday tea.
So Miss Hearne decided to let the Sacred Heart wait. She smiled, instead, at Bernard and asked him what he had been studying at the university.
“Arts,” he said.
“And were you planning to teach? I mean, when your health . . .”
“I’m not planning anything,” Bernard said quietly. “I’m writing poetry. And I’m living with my mother.” He smiled at Mrs Henry Rice as he said it. Mrs Henry Rice nodded her head fondly.
“Bernard’s not like some boys,” she said. “Always wanting to leave their poor mothers and take up with some woman and get married far too young. No, Bernard likes his home, don’t you, Bernie?”
“Nobody else knows my ways as well as you, Mama,” Bernie said softly. He turned to Miss Hearne. “She’s really an angel, Mama is, especially when I don’t feel well.”
Miss Hearne couldn’t think of anything to say. Something about him, so insincere. And staring at me like that, what’s the matter with me, is my skirt up? No, of course not. She tugged her skirt snug about her calves and resolutely turned the conversation toward a common denominator.
“We’re in Saint Finbar’s here, I believe. That’s Father Quigley’s parish, isn’t it?”
“Yes, he’s the P.P. Isn’t he a caution?”
“Oh, is that so? I heard he was a wonderful man,” Miss Hearne said. Goodness knows, religion is a comfort, even in conversation. If we hadn’t the priests to talk about, where would we be half the time?
“He’s very outspoken, I mean,” Mrs Henry Rice corrected herself. “I’ll tell you a story I heard only last week. And it’s the gospel truth.”
Mrs Henry Rice paused and looked sideways at Bernard. “Last week,” she said, “Father Quigley was offered a new Communion rail for the church from a Mrs Brady that used to keep a bad house. And do you know what he told her?”
“What Mrs Brady would that be?” Miss Hearne said faintly, unsure that she had heard it right. A “bad house” did she say? It certainly sounded like it. Well, that sort of place shouldn’t be mentioned, let alone mentioned in connection with the Church. You read about them in books, wicked houses, and who would think there were such places, right here in Belfast. She leaned forward, her black eyes nervous, her face open and eager.
“Well, as I said, she’s the one that ran a bad house for men over on the Old Lodge Road,” Mrs Rice said. “A terrible sort of woman. So, like all those bad women, she began to get afraid when she knew her time was coming near, and she decided to go to confession and mend her ways. The house was closed up last year and she’s been a daily communicant ever since. So, a couple of weeks ago – I heard it from one of the ladies in the altar society – she went to see Father Quigley and said she wanted to present a new Communion rail to Saint Finbar’s. Wrought iron from Spain, all the finest work.”
Mrs Henry Rice paused to watch Miss Hearne’s reaction.
“Well, I never!” Miss Hearne said.
“And do you know what Father Quigley said to her? He just drew himself up, such a big powerful stern man, you know what he looks like, and he said, ‘Look here, my good woman, let me ask you straight out, where did you get the money?’”
“Good heavens,” Miss Hearne said, thrilling to every word. “And what did she say to that, the creature?”
“Well, that took her back, no denying. She just fretted and fussed and finally she said she made the money in her former business. Her business, if you please. So Father Quigley just looked down at her, with that stiff look of his, and said to her, he said: ‘Woman,’ he said, ‘do you think I’ll have the good people of this parish kneeling down on their bended knees to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ with their elbows on the wages of sin and corruption?’ That’s the very thing he said.”
“And right too,” Miss Hearne commented. “That was putting her in her place. I should think so, indeed.”
Bernard pulled the poker out of the coals and lit a cigarette against its reddened end. “Poor Mama,” he said. “You always mix a story up. No, no, that wasn’t the way of it at all. You’ve forgotten what Mrs Brady said, right back to him.”
Mrs Henry Rice gave him a reproachful glance. “Never mind, Bernie. I did not forget. But I wouldn’t lower myself to repeat the insolence of a one like that Mrs Brady.”
“But that’s the whole point,” Bernard said, pushing the poker back among the coals. “Wait till I tell you her answer.” And he leaned forward toward Miss Hearne, his white, fat face split in a smile of anti-clerical malice. His voice changed, mimicking the tones of the bad Mrs Brady.
“She said to him: ‘Father, where do you think the money came from that Mary Magdalene used to anoint the feet of Our Blessed Lord? It didn’t come from selling apples,’ she said. And that’s the real story about Father F. X. Quigley, if you want to know.”
When he said this, Bernard laughed. His cheeks wobbled like white pudding.
“What a shocking disrespect for the priest,” Miss Hearne said. Where did the ointment come from anyway? Sometimes it made you see that you should read your Douay and know it better in order to be able to give the lie to rascals like this fat lump. But for the life of her she couldn’t remember where Mary Magdalene had got the money. What matter, it was an out-and-out sin to quote Scripture to affront the priest. She put her teacup down.
“The devil can quote Scripture to suit his purpose,” she said.
“Just so,” Mrs Henry Rice agreed. “But what else could you expect from the likes of Mrs Brady? No decent woman would talk to her.”
“Well – when I think of it – that hussy!” Miss Hearne said. “It’s downright blasphemy, that’s what it is, saying a thing like that in connection with Our Blessed Lord. Oh, my goodness, that reminds me. My picture. It’s of the Sacred Heart and I always hang it up as soon as I get in a new place. I mustn’t be keeping you. The hammer.”
“The hammer. I forgot all about it,” Mrs Henry Rice said. “Now, let me think. Oh, I know.”
She stood up, opened the door and yelled into the hall.
“Mary! May-ree!”
A voice called back. “Ye-ess!”
“Get the hammer out of the top drawer in the dresser in the attic,” Mrs Henry Rice bawled. She closed the door and turned back to Miss Hearne.
“Another cup of tea before you go?”
“Oh, no, really, it’s been lovely. Just perfect, thank you very much.”
“She’s a new girl, you know,” Mrs Henry Rice said, nodding toward the door. “I got her from the nuns at the convent. A good strong country girl. But they need a lot of breaking in, if you know what I mean.”
Miss Hearne, completely at home with this particular conversation, having heard it in all its combinations from her dear aunt and from her friends, said that if you got a good one it was all right, but sometimes you had a lot of trouble with them.
“You have to be after them all the time,” Mrs Henry Rice said, moving into the familiar groove of such talk. “You know, it’s a wonder the nuns don’t do more with them before they send them out to take a place. Badly trained, or not trained at all, is about the height of it.”
“Even when these girls are trained, they’re not used to the city,” Miss Hearne said. “I know the trouble friends of mine have had with convent-trained girls, taking up with soldiers and other riff-raff. Indeed, I often think the nuns are too strict. The girls behave like children as soon as . . .”
But she did not finish because at that moment there was a knock on the door and Mary came in. She was a tall, healthy girl with black Irish hair, blue eyes, and firm breasts pushing against the white apron of her maid’s uniform. Miss Hearne looked at her and thought she would do very nicely indeed. If you were civil to these girls, they often did little odd jobs that needed doing.
So she smiled at Mary and was introduced by Mrs Henry Rice. The hammer was given into her hands and she fumbled with it, saying thank you, and that she would return it as soon as she had finished hanging her picture. Mrs Henry Rice said there was no hurry and to let them know if she needed anything else, and then Miss Hearne went back up the two flights of stairs to her room.
She found a picture hook and began to nail the Sacred Heart over the head of the bed. And then, thinking back on the people downstairs, it occurred to her that while Bernard Rice was interesting in a horrible sort of way, he was also creepy-crawly and the sort of person a woman would have to look out for. He looked nosey and she felt sure he was the sort of slyboots who would love prying into other people’s affairs. And saying the worst thing he could about what he found. Instinctively, she looked at her trunks and saw that they were locked. Just keep them that way, she told herself. I wouldn’t put it past him to creep in here some day when I’m out. Still, his mother is certainly friendly, if a little soft where her darling boy is concerned. And the fire and the tea were nice and warming.
She stood back and surveyed the Sacred Heart. Prayers, she must say later. Meanwhile, she drew the curtains and lit the gas stove. With the electric light on and the gas stove spluttering, warming the white bones of its mantles into rosy red, the new bed-sitting room became much more cheerful. Miss Hearne felt quite satisfied after her cup of tea and biscuit, so, after unpacking some more of her things, she laid her flannel nightgown on the bed and turned the covers down. It had all gone very well really, and the cab driver had looked quite happy with the shilling she gave him for carrying the trunks upstairs. It should have been more, but he hadn’t said anything nasty. And that was the main thing. She was moved in, she had chatted with the landlady and, as a bonus, she had a couple of interesting stories to tell. The one about Father Quigley was not for mixed company, but it was certainly interesting. She decided to discard Bernard’s ending. It just wasn’t suitable and spoiled the whole point. And then there was Mrs Henry Rice and Bernard himself. They’d be something to talk about. Maybe some of the young O’Neills knew Bernard if he had been at Queen’s.
Miss Hearne unpacked the little travelling clock which had come all the way from Paris as a gift to her dear aunt. It was only seven, too early to go to bed. But she was tired and tomorrow was Friday, with nothing to do but unpack. Besides, if she went to sleep soon, she wouldn’t need any supper.
She put the clock on the bed table and switched on the little bed lamp. Then she undressed, and knelt to say her prayers. Afterward, she lay between the covers in the strange bed, watching the shadows of the new room. When the reddened mantles of the stove had cooled to whiteness and the chill of the night made goose-pimples on her forearms outside the covers, she looked over at her dear aunt and then turned her head to look up at the Sacred Heart. She said good night to them both, then switched off the bed light and lay, snuggled in, with only her nose and eyes out of the covers, remembering that both of them were there in the darkness. They make all the difference, Miss Hearne thought, no matter what aunt was like at the end. When they’re with me, watching over me, a new place becomes home.
From AudioFile
Product details
- ASIN : B004J4WLMI
- Publisher : NYRB Classics (August 17, 2011)
- Publication date : August 17, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 644 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 282 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #471,576 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #581 in British & Irish Literary Fiction
- #704 in Single Women Fiction
- #2,230 in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
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Customers praise the book for its well-written and executed narrative. They find the narrative compelling and insightful. The visual quality is described as vivid and easy to visualize. Readers appreciate the character development, describing them as warm and understanding. Opinions differ on the sadness level of the book, with some finding it sad and emotional draining while others consider it brilliant.
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Customers praise the writing quality of the book. They find it well-written, beautifully executed, and thought-provoking. The book is described as a real page-turner that tells a compelling story. Readers appreciate the author's skill and consider it an interesting read from the 1950s.
"...Read this book. It's not only well done, the cover of the New York Review Books Classic Edition (2010) is just fabulous." Read more
"...and privacy, and was not too comfortable doing so, such is the power of good writing...." Read more
"...However, it was very well written and somewhat compelling." Read more
"...The writing of this novel is classic, reminiscent of many other great authors from Ireland and England and the story, though small, grips you from..." Read more
Customers find the narrative compelling and intriguing. They say the author creates wonderful stories with vivid descriptions. The book keeps their attention with its emotional content and entertainment value.
"The lonely passion of Judith Hearne was a powerful perspective of how two people carry on conversations while mentally arriving at different..." Read more
"I read it quickly because it kept my attention. But, it is terribly sad. I’m not a fan of super sad stories and this qualifies...." Read more
"This is the most amazing, beautifully written, tragic novel that nobody ever reads...." Read more
"...They were quite the cast, and help provide the entertainment aspect of the book. Very well done!" Read more
Customers appreciate the book's visual quality. They find the drawings exquisite and vivid, with descriptions of rooms, churches, clothing, and other details easy to visualize. The prose paints bleak pictures for the reader.
"...Every detail was so easy to visualize, from descriptions of the rooms, the church, clothing, mannerisms, I felt like I was in each room with each..." Read more
"...Moore draws her in exquisite detail, so that we see a human being who is suffering and whom we can identify with..." Read more
"...To enter the world of Judith Hearne, so beautiful and so bleakly sketched, is to enter another time and place and to be invited to think about the..." Read more
"...wonderful stories but his prose also "paints" vivid pictures for the reader...." Read more
Customers enjoy the well-developed characters in this emotionally charged novel. They find the cast entertaining, with comic portraits of the scoundrel James Madden and warmth and understanding that season any sadness with irony.
"...This is one aspect of this character driven, emotionally charged novel...." Read more
"...There are no saints in this novel, but the people are sketched with warmth and understanding, seasoning any sadness with irony and humor...." Read more
"...Despite the novel’s pathos, there are wonderful comic portraits: of the scoundrel James Madden, returned from Brooklyn; of the landlady Mrs. Rice..." Read more
"...They were quite the cast, and help provide the entertainment aspect of the book. Very well done!" Read more
Customers have different views on the book's sadness. Some find it a sad story of a tortured soul and an examination of loneliness. Others describe it as depressing, emotionally draining, and heartbreaking.
"I read it quickly because it kept my attention. But, it is terribly sad. I’m not a fan of super sad stories and this qualifies...." Read more
"...A touching, heartbreak of a read." Read more
"...Very cringey. Couldn't put it down." Read more
"...heard of its reputation, and even so it was an even more viscerally devastating read than I had imagined: Brian Moore spares Judith..." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2013Set in 1950's Belfast, The Lonely Passion of Miss Judith Hearne was originally published in 1922, and was even made into a movie in 1987.
Who is Judith Hearne and what's her story? She's a lonely, 40-something never married woman who was raised to set her sites on wealthy men. However, her life circumstances, of having cared for her Aunt Darcy coupled with her rather plain looks finds her now living on a small annuity left to her by her aunt. Judith's also a religious woman, who carries her fair share of guilt. Her only friends are the O'Neil family who are never as anxious to see her as she is to see them - referring to her as the "great bore". In addition, Judith appears to have moved around a bit since her aunt died, and as the novel begins she has just moved into a room in lodging house.
"After she had arranged the photograph so that her dear aunt could look at her from the exact centre of the mantelpiece, Miss Hearne unwrapped the white tissue paper which covered the coloured oleograph of the Sacred Heart. His place was at the head of the bed, His fingers raised in benediction, His eyes kindly yet accusing. He was old and the painted halo around His head was beginning to slow little cracks. He had looked down on Miss Hearne for a long time, almost half her lifetime."
The landlady, Mrs. Rice and her creepy, perverted adult son, Bernie, with his "long blond curls" are a couple of odd ducks. The mother washes her grown son's hair and waits on him hand and foot. When Mrs Rice's brother, James Madden returns from the US and decides to stay with his sister at the lodging house a while, Judith has strange imaginings that he may be the man for her. She reads much more into their interactions than is actually there, and soon she realizes things are not working out as she hoped.
To assuage her guilt and fill her need for human contact she goes to church, and even there she's alone. She finds the church empty except for the priest. After confessing to Father Quigley, he quickly dismisses her, leaving Judith to begin questioning her faith. Even sadder and lonelier than before, she starts drinking once again, and things quickly spiral out of control.
"A drink would put things right,. Drink was not to help forget, but to help remember, to clarify and arrange untidy and unpleasant facts into a perfect pattern of reasonableness and beauty. Alcoholic, she did not drink to put aside the dangers and disappointments of the moment. She drank to be able to see these trials more philosophically, to examine them more fully, fortified by the stimulant of unreason."
This was such a well-written book. It was just over 200 pages, however, I found myself reading this one very slowly. Every detail was so easy to visualize, from descriptions of the rooms, the church, clothing, mannerisms, I felt like I was in each room with each character. I couldn't help but feel sorry for Judith; she's one of those characters that will stay in my mind for a long while.
Read this book. It's not only well done, the cover of the New York Review Books Classic Edition (2010) is just fabulous.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2022The lonely passion of Judith Hearne was a powerful perspective of how two people carry on conversations while mentally arriving at different conclusions-of sincerely planning different directions in their use/misuse of the other. Judith Hearne, the aging spinster in yet another boarding house, sees marital light at the end of the tunnel in the person of James Madden, certainly the novel’s most despicable character. She longs for him; he could use her, and so go the talks and tragic misunderstandings between the two.
This is one aspect of this character driven, emotionally charged novel. Judith Hearne is not too likable-I never allowed myself to be too drawn to her, not even at her most vulnerable. She can be prickly, overly critical, and self-justifying. But her background makes her present understandable, and the O’Neill’s kindness to her after her economic and societal fall is touching; the story needed to play itself out and their warmth was a good finish.
Personally, I was reminded of a long-term waitress I worked with. In college she had two major family deaths and through this lost direction and did not finish her degree. She fell into waitressing, and into an unsuccessful longer-term relationship, to find herself these years later alone, short of money, a bleakness about it all. As well, in times of deep isolation I’ve done what Judith Hearne did, practice potential conversations, an admission of sorts that I felt I had little to offer.
Somewhere I’d come across Joyce Carol Oates quote: “Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.” I entered Hearne’s life and privacy, and was not too comfortable doing so, such is the power of good writing. This was my first Brian Moore novel, and by the end I could see why he structured it so, especially with the minor boarding house characters, bringing it together by the end. The loss of all that Judith had, but what never healingly comforted her, is pronounced. A touching, heartbreak of a read.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2023I read it quickly because it kept my attention. But, it is terribly sad. I’m not a fan of super sad stories and this qualifies. However, it was very well written and somewhat compelling.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2022Miss Hearne is one of thousands of impoverished spinsters in post WWII Belfast. Did she not marry due to a war tragedy? Or is Miss Hearne unmarried and poor because the path she took in life caused her to end up in "bed-sitters" (one bedroom lodgings) with little money scraped together from teaching sporadically and an insufficient annuity.
The true poverty is the loneliness. Miss Hearne runs a constant inner monologue of self-doubt, self-loathing and criticism. She's unworthy of company and thus has none. And she lives a simultaneous fantasy life as a dark haired beauty, gorgeous in scarlet while appearing not so gorgeous to those who meet her.
The writing of this novel is classic, reminiscent of many other great authors from Ireland and England and the story, though small, grips you from the moment Judith Hearne moves in and hangs her Sacred Heart print on a stained, wallpapered wall. Very cringey. Couldn't put it down.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2023I chose a four star rating because I enjoyed the thought provoking writing and how the author incorporated Judith's religious beliefs into the story,
- Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2014I love most of Moore's work. I didn't love Judith Hearne. His character development (as usual) was excellent; I just didn't like the main character.
Top reviews from other countries
- Cathy BluteauReviewed in Canada on February 16, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars I absolutely loved this book
I absolutely loved this book. First time I read Brian Moore and am looking for more of his books. Well written - some say depressing but I found it represented real life and the extents people will go to to not be lonely.
- Honest JoReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 10, 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely recommend it
This was recommended by American-UK writer Scott Bradfield. Fabulous read, and helped me with my own novel-writing too. In my copy, there are also insightful "extras" from Brian Moore. When he wrote this, he was quite lonely living in a caravan, but don't expect something miserable... there is plenty of humour.
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Marie DurandReviewed in France on June 12, 2013
4.0 out of 5 stars Plus de solitude que de passion.
Publié en 1955 par le très versatile et indûment sous estimé Brian Moore, ce roman raconte l'histoire de Judith Hearne, une femme célibataire, la quarantaine, qui survit dans des pensions miteuses grâce à quelques leçons de piano. C'est l'histoire d'une déchéance sociale (élevée convaincue d'appartenir à une classe supérieure la protagoniste est incapable de gagner sa vie quand elle se retrouve démunie), affective (ses préjugés, son éducation, sa fierté mal placée l'ont progressivement isolée), psychologique (elle lutte contre l'alcoolisme dans lequel sa solitude a contribué à la plonger, elle doute de sa foi). Sa condition et son passé font que Judith deviendra la proie du premier homme croisé qui se montre quelque peu prévenant. Le rôle de la religion – obligatoire quoique peu ou pas réconfortante- est impitoyablement présenté dans la figure de ses représentants.
L'ambiance de la vie dans une pension est bien évoquée et elle contribue à l'atmosphère étouffante de Belfast dans les années post guerre. L'auteur sait de quoi il parle, lui qui a quitté l'Irlande très jeune pour s'exiler d'abord au Canada dont il prît la nationalité, ensuite en Californie où il mourut en 1999 à l'âge de 77 ans.
Judith Hearne est un roman passionnant mais pas recommandé si vous cherchez une lecture estivale légère.
- sean dohertyReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 15, 2013
4.0 out of 5 stars Worth a read
An all to familiar story, we all know of a Judith Hearne, all to often an anonymous individual inhibited by religious dogma and meaningless social convention destined to live a life without fulfilment, the Catholic church quite properly doesn't come out unscathed in what is a remarkable insight into the life of a woman many readers will recognise.
- American Dirt by Jeannine CummingsReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore
This book won't cheer you up,as it is a bleak portrayal of Catholic Ireland I think in mid 1900s.
As my mother was a bleak Irish Catholic,I found alot of insight in reading this book and its portrayal of Ireland and Brian Moore's astute depiction of Ireland at that time.