Winter People was the perfect reading companion for my recent tour of Ireland’s wild Atlantic coastline. Gráinne Murphy doesn’t give any place names but i suspect we’re in Western Cork since that’s where she lives. It just so happened that’s exactly where I was when I started reading the book.
Winter People is a tale of three broken and damaged individuals who live on the edge of a small town near the sea.
The oldest is Sis Cotter who grew up in a small house just a few yards away from the beach. It’s where she continued to live after her marriage and where she raised her three children. Now in her 70’s, widowed and all but estranged from her children, she is about to be evicted.
Her nearest neighbour Lydia is also alone, through out of choice. The ‘blue house’ was meant to be a holiday home for her and her husband but instead, it’s where Lydia has come to hide away from the world.
Lydia never ventures outside her door. Her only interactions are with her cleaner, the postman and one-sided phone calls with her husband back in the city. In a blur fuelled by pills and alcohol, she’s conscious of little beyond the guilt and anguish caused by her role in an accident.
Completing the trio is Peter, the lawyer who will eventually come knocking on Sis’s door and get her to leave.Just like the two women, he’s in turmoil. His childhood friend is dying but he can’t bring himself to visit the hospice. His former foster mother — the woman who took an abused and vulnerable child, and gave him a new life — is fading away and forgetting who he is.
Over the course of three days the novel shows how these individuals wrestle with their individual demons. Each person struggles to let go of the past, each pushes aside people who could help. Each afraid to say what they feel and want.
Winter People is a quietly contemplative novel of human resilience; emotive though not overly emotional.. There are glimmers of a brighter future for Peter and Lydia but Sis’s prospects are uncertain when the book ends.
I enjoyed the strong sense of place Murphy creates without resorting to long descriptive passages . Through Sis’s walks along the beach with her only companion — a dog called Laddy — we get a glimpse of the rugged beauty of this stretch of coastline. And through her trip into town to pick up groceries, we understand what makes this community tick : gossip and neighbourly kindness.
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