CACOPHONY OF BONE

The author’s day-book follow-up to her acclaimed debut, Thin Places.

In her latest memoir, Irish writer ní Dochartaigh reflects on 2020, which she spent in isolation with her partner in a small stone cottage that he had inherited two years prior. Coupled with the tumult of the pandemic was the uncertainty that the author would ever be able to bear a child. She chronicles her thoughts and feelings from that year in various forms, including journal entries and poems. At times overly fragmented, the narrative expresses the author’s strong emotions and often-obsessive thoughts about her inability to carry a pregnancy to term. “I cried and cried and cried because of grief,” she writes. “Grief I have already spent far too much time, energy and ink on.” On the whole, ní Dochartaigh’s observations are lyrical and relatable. She describes how she took up gardening, which provided both distraction and comfort. “I wish I’d known, long before now, that sowing is a way to grieve,” she writes. Throughout, ní Dochartaigh shares details of various dreams and her attempts to interpret them, including a recurring one of a “bird-child,” which brought about a shift in her mindset. She also found herself consumed with memories and the meaning they hold in our lives, and she expresses being drawn to moths and “the resilience of small things.” A voracious reader, ní Dochartaigh discusses works of literature that served as important companions and helped her navigate her emotions. I have found myself, in the thick of a global pandemic, utterly obsessed with Virginia Woolf,” she writes. “More specifically: with her journals….Even more specifically, still: I am hungry for accounts of time experienced by women.” Reflecting on the changes that the year brought for her and all of us, she notes, “I can’t go back to who I was before that year.”

A raw, honest, and poetic memoir.