Deirdre Madden was born in Ireland in 1960 and studied at Trinity College, Dublin and the University of East Anglia. She is the author of nine novels, including The Birds of Innocent Wood, which won the Somerset Maugham Prize, as well as One by One in the Darkness and Molly Fox’s Birthday, both of which were shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She teaches creative writing at Trinity College Dublin.
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Deirdre Madden
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Fintan Buckley and his wife Colette live in Ireland and are a normal family (two sons, one daughter) living in a normal house with everyone doing normal things (he's an attorney, she's what we used to call a 'housewife') with a singular exception: their universe is about as odd...— Jun 2 2015![]()
Fintan Buckley and his wife Colette live in Ireland and are a normal family (two sons, one daughter) living in a normal house with everyone doing normal things (he's an attorney, she's what we used to call a 'housewife') with a singular exception: their universe is about as odd...— May 15 2015![]()
There’s an irony to the Amazon reviews of this elegant, but unpretentious examination of time present, past, and future, which the author reveals through the most “normal” of families and the way they live their lives. A large number of reviewers have downgraded this...— Sep 29 2014![]()
We spend our lives tumbling through time, carried along as it eddies and pools, buckles and loops, stutters and flies. As T. S. Eliot put it in the opening lines of “Burnt Norton,” “Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future...— Sep 5 2014![]()
This tightly controlled novel meditates on the nature of memory through three generations of an Irish family. In 2006, a businessman, unaware of the financial troubles that will soon engulf his country, has become obsessed with old photographs. As he researches the development...— Aug 11 2014![]()
The quotation from Eliot is, "Time present and time past/Are both perhaps present in time future/And time future contained in time past." So they're both teasing out that — because here is this novel, written, set at that moment of the Irish economy which we call the "Celtic...— Jun 7 2014![]()
This exquisite novel is about family, the tug of the past and the translucence of the present. It is told through various points of view: Fintan, a middle-aged lawyer; his sister, Martina, who has a terrible secret; Fintan’s wife, Colette, and his son, Niall. Not much happens:...— Jun 5 2014![]()
Review: TIME PRESENT, TIME PAST, by Deirdre Madden Time Present and Time Past, by Deirdre Madden. Published 2014 by Europa Editions. Fintan Buckley is a middle-aged, middle class man, with a wife of 24 years and three children- two teen-aged boys and...— May 14 2014![]()
Deirdre Madden’s Time Present and Time Past is a quiet, moving novel about the constant presence of time and memory in the lives of two Irish siblings. For once this is not a dysfunctional family, and what a refreshing change it is to read about people who have differences...— May 7 2014![]()
KIRKUS REVIEW Three generations of an Irish family confront key moments of the past in this eloquent, understated novella. It’s the spring of 2006, and Ireland can hear the last roars of the Celtic Tiger in an economic boom that peaked six years earlier. Fintan Buckley,...— Mar 20 2014
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