My enormous thanks to Lisa Shakespeare for sending me a surprise copy of The Inheritance by Cauvery Madhavan. I am delighted to share my review today.
Published by Hope Road on 19th September, The Inheritance is available in the usual places including directly from the publisher here.
The Inheritance
It’s 1986 and 29-year-old Marlo O’Sullivan of London-Irish stock has just found out that his sister is his mother. To steady his life, he moves to Glengarriff, to a cottage he has inherited, in the stunning Beara Peninsula. When a neighbour dies unexpectedly, Marlo takes over his minibus service to Cork. There is nothing regular about the regulars on the bus – especially Sully, a non-verbal 7 year old, who goes nowhere but does the journey back and forth every day, on his own. Marlo is landed with this a strange but compassionate arrangement, fashioned to give the child’s mother respite from his care. Sully’s obsession with an imaginary friend in the ancient oak forests of Glengarriff slowly unveils its terrible secrets – a 400-hundred-year-old tragedy revels itself.
My Review of The Inheritance
Marlo has inherited a cottage in Beara.
The Inheritance is a wonderful story that weaves the past and recent history into a tale of love, acceptance, forgiveness and belonging. I was completely captivated by it.
Cauvery Madhavan’s writing is beautiful. She depicts the wild attraction of Ireland to perfection so that she places her readers right in the heart of her settings. The Beara surroundings are every bit as much a character in The Inheritance as any of the people. The sound of Stevie bellowing, the colour of spilt blood, the touch of a hand and so on are simple, but carefully crafted, examples of how The Inheritance appeals to the senses and consequently becomes far more than the sum of its parts. It’s a magnificent book. I adored the naturalistic dialogue too, and the change in tone relating to the sections set in the early 1600s feels authentic and captivating.
The Inheritance is so difficult to categorise. There’s history steeped right into the landscape, and a sense of mystery with a touch of the supernatural through Sully that is realistic and totally believable. Religion, superstition and ritual all add layers of interest, and these aspects are frequently created with fond and gentle ribbing of the characters like Assumpta, so that The Inheritance feels written with, as well as about, love, tolerance and understanding. The brutality of the historical realism is balanced brilliantly by the humour and different forms of love in the more modern sections. Equally, this is a romance too. Consequently, The Inheritance appeals to a wide audience and is successful on every level.
What is so completely engaging is the sense of community. The people here all know one another’s business, and the area is filled with long memories, petty rivalries and fierce loyalties so that I finished The Inheritance feeling, like Marlo, as if I’d been plunged head first into a real place with little to prepare me. Both Marlo and Kitty have strong reasons to find themselves on the edge of social acceptability, and yet they are also the heart of the narrative. The way in which the community is described means that every single character is unforgettable, vivid and absolutely true to life. I loved them all.
I loved, too, the echoing ripples of history and kinship that link past and present. Cauvery Madavan is literally giving voice to the mute, the ordinary and the forgotten in a powerful and affecting narrative.
I completely lost my heart to The Inheritance because it is part of the rich, varied and engrossing culture of storytelling that those influenced by Ireland seem to achieve so effortlessly. I am delighted to find there are other Cauvery Madavan books to discover, because she is a writer with heart whose story held me transfixed and who demonstrates with warmth and understanding how letting go of the past enhances our present. Don’t miss this one. It’s glorious.
About Cauvery Madhavan
Cauvery Madhavan was born and educated in India. She worked as a copywriter in her hometown of Chennai (formerly Madras). Cauvery moved to Ireland over three decades years ago and has been in love with the country ever since. Her other books are: Paddy Indian, The Uncoupling and The Tainted.
She lives with her husband and three children in beautiful County Kildare.
For further information, visit Cauvery’s website, follow her on Twitter/X @CauveryMadhavan and find her on Instagram.
English (US) · 