girl in greenwood

The Marriage Bed
by Regina McBride

I sat down and read this book all in one evening. I should confess that I chose it based on the illustration on the cover. It's a lovely, haunting story about Dierdre, a woman in Ireland who was orphaned at a young age, then sent to a convent, but married just before she took her nun's vows. Most of the book takes place in Dierdre's memories of her childhood and adolescence, as she considers what to tell her adolescent daughters about her own life. The most interesting relationship in the book is between Dierdre and her husband, Manus. They move together and apart repeatedly during the course of their marriage. While this made for a compelling read, it also made me feel extremely well-adjusted, because I can't imagine my own marriage ever coming apart as badly as theirs!

Labels: book reports, relationships