WHEN ALL IS SAID by Anne Griffin

This is one of those books where each time I picked it up I struggled to remember what it was about.  An Irishman, Maurice, in his 80s, is addressing his son Kevin with the story of his life.  In particular, he is drinking a toast to the important people in his life, four of whom are deceased—his wife Sadie, their stillborn daughter Molly, Sadie’s disturbed sister Noreen, and his beloved older brother Tony.  Not so beloved are the members of the Dollard family, especially Thomas who sliced Maurice’s face while Maurice was employed in the Dollard household.  Maurice seemingly gets his revenge when he has the good fortune to find a rare coin belonging to the Dollard patriarch, Hugh.  The disappearance of this coin has serious unforeseen consequences for the Dollard family and lends a slight air of intrigue to the story.  However, some of the plot just did not seem plausible.  For instance, when Sadie introduces Maurice to her parents for the first time, she fails to inform him that her sister Noreen has been institutionalized.  When Maurice asks why Noreen is not present, he immediately finds that he has stepped into a disastrous quagmire of embarrassment that he could not have possibly anticipated.  Sadie claims that she thought she had told him.  Huh?  I am sure that would have resulted in a conversation that neither party would have been likely to forget.  Plus, I just did not find Maurice’s story all that moving, and I have to blame that fact on the way in which his story is told.  The author just failed to grab me and reel me in.  Also, the ending is disappointing on so many levels, not the least of which is that it is a forgone conclusion from the beginning.  I kept hoping that the trajectory would veer in another direction.