Books are a doorway into other lives, other worlds, other people’s stories. If the book is good, we are invested, intrigued, immersed in the story. Often, we are not reading the story we are IN it, sitting there amid the action, listening and watching and waiting, breath held, to see what happens next. Sometimes we laugh out loud. Sometimes we cry. Buckets. We know the characters and their dilemmas are not real, but they feel real, and their heartache touches us deeply. This is the craft of good writing, the writer’s words generating an emotional response in the reader. And a dopamine hit.
Here are five books that made me cry.
The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman
This book has to be up there top of the Weeper Scale for me. We chose it for our Book Club read a few years back. Set in the 1920s, a lighthouse keeper and his wife find a boat washed up on their island with a five month old baby inside, alive and well. A tragic story unfolds. The book is beautifully written and some passages I reread for their utter emotional heft. Oh God, how I cried as I read that book. When my daughter popped into say goodnight I couldn’t even speak – I was too choked to explain the story unfolding. At the Book Club I remained mute – very unusual for me – but I couldn’t trust myself not to sob uncontrollably. A powerful, poignant story beautifully told.
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.
‘But nothing happens in the book,’ I’ve heard people say. The book is a deceptively simple story about Lucy Barton who’s recovering in a New York hospital when her estranged mother comes to visit. Lucy tells us about her life, her childhood memories and we hear her conversations with her mother. For me, little happens, nothing overt is said, we just get a visceral sense of the abuse, the dysfunctional family background and the unspoken of pain and secrets. So much unsaid. Powerful word-smithing and a heart-breaking read.
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt is a masterpiece memoir.
It’s hilariously funny, dark and witty with melt your heart moments. I read this book while on a family holiday in Canada and my kids were appalled and embarrassed to see me by the poolside laughing out loud and then, minutes later sobbing as discreetly as I could. It took me a while – to page 90 – to get into the book but it’s definitely worth it to keep reading.
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan.
I remember reading this on an Ibiza beach one September. The first lines of the book read: ‘My father still lives back the road past the weir in the cottage I was reared in. I go there every day to see is he dead and every day he lets me down.’ It’s a gobsmacking start to a powerfully emotional read. The book follows a number of stunningly drawn small town voices in post Celtic Tiger Ireland. We get each character’s take on life in the town and the voices are harrowing, raw and authentic. I bought the book after hearing an excerpt read by the author on the RTE radio Arts Show one evening as I drove home. The writing is the kind that stealthily reaches down into your heart and cracks it open
Normal People by Sally Rooney.
This time I was in a rooftop café in Rome the day after the Irish rugby match, in February 2019. ‘Why are you crying?’ my husbands asked as I wiped away the tears. I wanted to put my arms around Marianne Sheridan, so lost was she. Lost to herself. Marianne was one of those characters that I couldn’t get out of my head for months afterwards and I fervently hoped she found a good life after the official ending of the book.
I’m grateful to all those authors who make us feel, whether its laughter or tears. It’s a potent mix of talent and craft to get the reader to feel deeply about the characters on the page
What books have made you cry over the years?