Books like Amongst Women

This tale of a curmudgeonly Irish father and his effect on his five children was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1990. While reading it, at first I thought of A Man Called Ove, another curmudgeon. But Ove was not a father and he softened up over time. Michael, this father, did not. As the story went along I thought more of Stoner; even though no one would call Stoner a curmudgeon, but, I thought: this is his life, this is the way he is; this is the way things are; it is what it is; he’s not going to change; what do you expect?Michael is a farmer. He has small pension from having been in the Irish Army, but money is tight. He spends his days in backbreaking work dawn to dusk on his family farm, bringing in hay, tending the animals, mostly cattle. We learn quickly that he is the master of his roost. His wife and three daughters wait on him. He is served food first at a separate table and the rest of the family eats together afterwards. He is stern and has ‘black moods;’ “…silence and deadness would fall on them” when he walks into a room. If a dish is dropped in the kitchen everyone freezes and looks to him for his reaction. His wife feels “inordinately grateful when he behaves normally” and “inordinately grateful for the slightest goodwill.” Yet his girls and youngest boy love him especially in those rare moments when he might dance around the room. Perhaps he is manic depressive?The father says grace before and after meals. He leads the family in Catholic prayer every evening – a full rosary on their knees. His blackest moods come about most often when he thinks of his prodigal son, the oldest boy who ran off to London and never came back. (view spoiler)[ The son keeps in contact with his brother and sister but never comes back home. He sees his father once at one of his sister’s weddings and they speak politely for a minute. They exchange one polite letter. That’s it. He does not attend his father’s funeral. (hide spoiler)]