When All is Said: Anne Griffin

“I’m here to remember–all that I have been and all that I will never be again.”

In Anne Griffin’s novel When All is Said, 84 year-old Maurice Hannigan sits at the bar of at the Rainsford House Hotel, Ireland, and recalls his life. It’s been a long life full of its joys and tragedies. Maurice is now alone; his wife Sadie is dead and his son Kevin is far way in America. Maurice, a very wealthy man who grew up in dire poverty, has sold his house, given away his dog,  and is in the brink of moving into a nursing home, but what is really going on here?

Over the course of the evening, Maurice recalls the five most significant people in his life: including his long-dead older brother Tony,  his still-born daughter, and his wife.

84 years is a long time, and as Maurice recalls his life, we see how the world has changed. Maurice grew up in a large poor family, and his education was interrupted when, at age ten, he went to work at the Dollard estate where his mother worked in the kitchen. The scenes at the Dollard house are miserable with the lord of the manor beating and humiliating his son, Thomas, which has a trickle-down effect to Maurice. These episodes are a reminder of how the world of employment of servants, a world in which servants had to tolerate everything dumped on them, has changed, well at least in some countries–not all.

I was fascinated by the trajectory of … not exactly revenge… no the novel isn’t bitter enough for that. No, the novel has a trajectory of “payback,” re-balance & the settling of old scores. Maurice’s beatings harden him, yes, but they don’t turn him into a ball of rage and revenge. This is a man who remembers the slights and injustices of his past and then singlemindedly triumphs over his humiliations and those who caused them. Maurice isn’t proud of all his actions, and there’s an incident in his past involving a missing valuable coin which has repercussions throughout his life.

The scenes with Maurice and his brother were touching. Here’s Maurice now at age 84, an extremely wealthy man, and yet he grew up in the harshest poverty, with meat a scarce treat. Now Maurice could buy his way out of the problems of his youth, but time doesn’t allow those sorts of second chances.

One of the most poignant episodes of the novel involves Maurice and his acquaintance with Jason, a young man who marries into the Dollard family.

I’d seen Jason around the village over the years since our showdown.  He’d nod in my direction or mouth a very curt hello. Always in a rush somewhere. In return I’d raise my index finger not too high mind. Regret is too strong a word, but I wish I’d made an effort to know him. There was something trustworthy in his bravery the night he’d stood at my our front door asking me to give more money for the Dollard land. But even if I had reached across the divide and stopped for a chat on those days we passed each other by, I doubt he’d have given me the time of day. I wouldn’t have, had the shoe been on the other foot. In the end, he possibly came out the better man. 

Some of the memories were moving but others (for this reader) were on the maudlin/wallowing side. There’s a lot of melancholy and misery here, and Maurice’s overwhelming sense of ‘being done’ is evident. The author makes it clear that Maurice is an interesting individual with many stories to tell but he’s been reduced to the those stereotypical roles: Old Man: the one who talks too much, who’s a bit of a nuisance, the one who’s sidelined as a ‘character’ by those who still have their own lives to live. Very sad.

Review copy

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