Colm Toibin's `The South' is a powerful and moving novel about the difficulties facing people who decide to change their lives and then have to live with the consequences.
It begins in 1950 in Ireland. Katherine Proctor is married to Tom and she feels stifled and unfulfilled. Tom farms the land she inherited from her father and they have a ten year old son. After a dispute with a neighbour which she believes Tom mishandles, she threatens to leave him. Tom ignores her and she leaves, taking only some money and her passport and escapes to her mother who lives in London. Katherine then makes the decision to go to Spain to begin a new life.
Katherine travels to Barcelona, determined to become a painter. Katherine sees the world through the colour palate of an artist, describing events in terms of colours and suppressing her emotions. Indeed it is only when painting that she seems to experience real connection with what is going on around her in the world. In Barcelona she meets Miguel, an artist and a veteran of the Spanish Civil War. She starts a new life with him and tries to forget her past. However, when she meets Michael Graves, a fellow Irish exile she is forced to re-examine her life and beliefs. Miguel's past life catches up with him resulting in tragedy. Michael helps Katherine to come to terms with events and to look to the future. The narrative ends in Ireland in the 1970s.
The book examines the parallels between Spanish and Irish history in the twentieth century. It struck me that we think of Spain as a modern European democracy but this novel reminded me forcefully that in the very recent past it was a fascist dictatorship where ordinary people became nervous when they saw a policeman.
This was Toibin's first novel written whilst he was working as a journalist in 1990. I enjoyed the read and it is recommended.
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