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    The Little Red Chairs
    The Little Red Chairs
    The Little Red Chairs
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Little Red Chairs

    Written by Edna O'Brien

    Narrated by Juliet Stevenson

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A fiercely beautiful novel about one woman's struggle to reclaim a life shattered by betrayal from the 2018 winner of the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

    One night, in the dead of winter, a mysterious stranger arrives in the small Irish town of Cloonoila. Broodingly handsome, worldly, and charismatic, Dr. Vladimir Dragan is a poet, a self-proclaimed holistic healer, and a welcome disruption to the monotony of village life. Before long, the beautiful black-haired Fidelma McBride falls under his spell and, defying the shackles of wedlock and convention, turns to him to cure her of her deepest pains.

    Then, one morning, the illusion is abruptly shattered. While en route to pay tribute at Yeats's grave, Dr. Vlad is arrested and revealed to be a notorious war criminal and mass murderer. The Cloonoila community is devastated by this revelation, and no one more than Fidelma, who is made to pay for her deviance and desire. In disgrace and utterly alone, she embarks on a journey that will bring both profound hardship and, ultimately, the prospect of redemption.

    Moving from Ireland to London and then to The Hague, The Little Red Chairs is Edna O'Brien's first novel in ten years -- a vivid and unflinching exploration of humanity's capacity for evil and artifice as well as the bravest kind of love.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateMar 29, 2016
    ISBN9781478929826
    The Little Red Chairs
    Author

    Edna O'Brien

    Edna O’Brien (1930–2024) was the author of more than twenty-five works of fiction, including The Country Girls, The Little Red Chairs, and The Light of Evening. She received numerous awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she lived in London for many years.

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    Reviews for The Little Red Chairs

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    • 3/5

      Sep 2, 2024

      This novel is inspired by the longtime evasion of capture by Radovan Karadžić, the Serbian president during the Bosnian war who was later convicted of genocide and war crimes. Posing as a metaphysical psychologist and poet, the fugitive Karadžić lived in Vienna and Belgrade for a decade before capture. In the novel, the author has "Vlad" living in a small village in Ireland and imagines his life there as a Rasputin-like figure. He has an affair with Fidelma, who will pay dearly for being misled by him. The second half of the book has Fidelma living in London as a sort of refugee. As she learns of the struggles of others who have suffered violence in their home countries, she attempts to overcome her own trauma.

      Although I knew the context of the book prior to reading it, I was surprised by the novel's grittiness, violence, and focus on the refugee experience. Character after character shares their story of escape from violence only to suffer homelessness, poverty, and humiliation in their new country. Karadžić's experience of living a successful life while on the run contrasts sharply with his victims' experiences, and this is depicted through these fictional characters. This difference is made more stark when considering evidence that Karadžić received help from the US in evading capture for as long as he did. In the novel this is hinted at when his guards threaten Fidelma when she visits Vlad in prison.

      Despite the creative historical reworking and vivid writing, I found this a hard book to like. The two story lines, Vlad's and the London refugees', were not integrated well into a single whole, instead it felt like two books mashed into one. In addition I felt the pacing to be uneven, with some parts lagging while others raced along. Verdict: A for intent and C for execution.
    • 2/5

      Jan 25, 2022

      I enjoyed the beginning of this book when events were centred around the village and its occupants. Following the event on the bus the story pretty much ended: the events surrounding Fidelma once she left the village were disjointed and uninteresting and did nothing to move the story along. I skipped quite a bit of the middle of the book and read the end, which wrapped things up a little too neatly.

      On the whole it was quite well written, although the changes between past and present tense - sometimes more than once in the same paragraph - were distracting and unnecessary. I was left feeling a little disappointed by what I'd read as the premise was really quite good, but the content, for me, was a bit of a miss.
    • 3/5

      Nov 14, 2021

      "The hunted, the haunted"

      "We don't know others. They are an enigma. We can't know them, especially those we are most intimate with, because habit blurs us and hope blinds us to the truth." page239

      A war criminal from Sarajevo is hiding out in Ireland until he gets caught. The story is more about the woman he was involved with before his capture and the repercussions the revelation of his horrors have on her life. A scattered novel about war, trauma, denial, accountability -- or something like that... as the pieces never seemed cohesive enough for me, the parts weren't glued together enough. So I will stop talking about this book now... I don't want to be like the guy in the bar at the end of this book...
    • 4/5

      Aug 13, 2019

      A mysterious Balkan figure strides from the darkness into a quiet Irish pub one night. Charming and magnetic, he soon has the spellbound villagers eating out of his hand, but all is not as it seems and soon his past will become irreversibly blotted on the past of one inhabitant in particular.

      I'm a little torn by this novel. I raced through the first half of it gripped by the mystery and inevitable sense of foreboding, but the second half lost some its mystique as O'Brien focused on the aftermath of redemption and retribution. The tension fizzled out for me from that point onwards, and the social and political messages of that second part seemed somewhat gritty and inconsistent with the spellbinding magic of the first half.

      3.5 stars - a book of two halves that in truth are two different types of novel. It was too light a touch to do justice to the true human impact of the horrors of the Bosnian war, and that second half seemed incongruous with the sleepy Irish backwater of the first half.
    • 4/5

      Sep 29, 2018

      For the title of her 18th novel, The Little Red Chairs, Edna O’Brien makes use of an emotionally devastating image: at a memorial event held in 2012 and known as the Sarajevo Red Line, 11,541 empty red chairs were arranged on the main street in Sarajevo to commemorate the 11,541 people killed during the 1,425 days of the Siege of Sarajevo (1992-1996), 643 of which were small chairs to honour the victims who were children. In the novel, a man of Eastern European origin calling himself Vladimir Dragan turns up in a small village in the west of Ireland. Dragan represents something of a conundrum for the inhabitants of Cloonoila, who never totally warm up to him but nonetheless find him fascinating and alluring. Undaunted by the villagers’ suspicions, he fashions himself as Dr. Vlad the naturopath, and begins to practice his cryptic healing arts on some of the less timid of the locals. Vlad, with his veneer of esoteric wisdom, charismatic presence, commanding bearing and resonant voice, is of particular interest to the women. To vulnerable, emotionally starved, 40-year-old Fidelma, who has suffered two miscarriages and is married to a man many years her senior, Vlad comes to represent something of a last hope. Fidelma is desperate for a child, and with pleas and promises persuades him to plant the seed. Then the truth comes out. Vlad’s actual identity is exposed, and he is apprehended and packed off to the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague to answer for atrocities perpetrated during the Bosnian War. In the second half of the novel, Fidelma, disgraced and alone, leaves Ireland to pick up the pieces of her life in London, where she works a series of menial jobs and encounters other refugees and exiles fleeing persecution, war and famine, people trying to recover from losses and suffering hardships every bit as distressing as her own. Coming from an author who has nothing left to prove, The Little Red Chairs offers a bleak perspective on the modern world. It is an honest and uncompromising work of political fiction that stares murderous prejudice and human brutality squarely in the face. Paradoxically, it is also a work of great beauty. Throughout, O’Brien’s prose, as we would expect, is supple, memorable, richly observant, and crammed with apt metaphors and striking images. And though one cannot argue with the assertion that this is a relentlessly grim and at times gut-wrenching novel—to the point that some readers may have difficulty with the violence depicted in its pages—there is also no question that The Little Red Chairs is the work of an author whose storytelling powers, fifty years into her career, show no sign of diminishing.
    • 3/5

      May 3, 2018

      his is a really difficult book to review – on one hand it is an undoubtedly well written and touches deftly on any number of important issues but I also struggled at times with the style and did not warm to many of the characters as appalling as their circumstances were. Ultimately I think a book that I struggle to rate highly but am still glad that I read.

      Plot in a Nutshell
      A mysterious Eastern European healer Vladimir wanders into a small Irish village where he sets up home and a practice. A local woman Fidelma who is desperate for a child starts a relationship with him only to find that he is a wanted war criminal. After suffering terribly for her relationship with Vlad we follow Fidelma as she endeavours to start a new life in London before finally facing him once more at his trial in The Hague.

      Thoughts
      The book is written in significant number of short chapters many of which introduce characters and perspectives which are not revisited. Whilst reading I did not particularly enjoy this and was frustrated by the shifting points of view and upon completion I feel like the reader is left with any number of loose ends all of which could be jumping off points for other, possibly more compelling stories. Particularly confusing is the second third of the book which shows Fidelma starting her life in London amongst a cast of refugees and immigrants who as you might expect have sad and difficult back stories but are only loosely connected to the main narrative.

      For much of the novel the writing is wonderfully descriptive – whether painting a strong visual of the landscape of rural Ireland or a pen portrait of any of the cast of ancillary characters nearly all of whom I believe I would recognise if I happened to meet. Where this falls down however is in the writing about the atrocities of the war where the writing is significantly more sparse. I can only assume given the quality of overall writing that this was a conscious decision but I found it cold and unemotional.

      I struggled also with many of the characters including Fidelma herself. A woman approaching middle age and desperately longing for a child; finding herself the victim of a frankly horrific act of violence and then ultimately homeless in London should be a sympathetic character and yet I found myself at best unengaged and at worst incredibly frustrated by her ongoing apathy and life choices. One character I did relate to and who I would have liked to see more of is Mujo, the kitchen porter who first recognises that the new doctor is not who he is portraying himself to be and of whose back story we see only a little.

      Ultimately whilst Edna O’Brien does an excellent job in painting scenes and snapshots that will stay with me I think my ultimate issue is that in a novel that takes its title from a moving war memorial the war itself is secondary and the characters truly impacted by the war be it Mujo or Zelmic have limited airtime in favour of exploring its impact on Fidelma.
    • 5/5

      Feb 23, 2018

      A wonderfully complex novel that begins in almost fairytale fashion when a mysterious stranger appears in a seemingly idyllic Irish village. Dr. Vladimir Dragan from Montenegro claims he was lured to Ireland by a pale-faced woman with tears streaming down her cheeks -- familiar in Ireland as Aisling, meaning dream. The stranger is a philosopher-poet-healer who captivates the villagers, especially the women, with his charismatic charm. But O'Brien casts an evil spell over the encounter of the stranger and the village.

      Vladimir Dragan is modelled upon Radovan Karadzic, the Serbian president of Republika Srpska from 1992 to 1996, who masterminded the siege of Sarajevo and the ethnic genocide of Muslim and Croat civilians. This is not a historical novel in which real people appear as themselves in actual events, rather O'Brien is confronting the realities when the victims of violence flee to other countries as immigrants. And it is a novel about trying to find home in a world that violently thrusts people from the places they once considered home.

      It isn't for readers who like neatly wrapped plots or straightforward narration. There are multiple narrators ands viewpoints, and the horrific complexities of the conflicts of the contemporary world are center-stage.
    • 2/5

      Jan 29, 2018

      I was hoping for a lot more from this story than what I read. Essentially, the premise that I had read on the back of the book pretty much ruined the story; there was no suspense whatsoever. This novel is definitely graphic in some areas so consider this a warning for any readers who are squeamish! After reading this novel, I felt ... cheated. I was expecting a story rife with emotions and full of this internal journey that Fidelma goes through after the discovery of Vlad's true identity. Instead, this novel switched to different narratives and I read a lot about the lives of different characters who had no relevance to this story. While I appreciated the time and effort that the author put into depicting the struggles of immigrants, it didn't really add anything to the story; in fact, it caused me to forget the main plot that drew me in in the first place! Even the ending was anticlimactic, and after the whole "breathtaking climax" promise that was on the blurb, I was very disappointed. Overall, this is a decent book that doesn't really deal with the issue head-on and rambles on different pathways before finally leading to an anticlimactic ending. Not really worth the read, unfortunately.
    • 4/5

      Jan 21, 2018

      This is a very special story. It starts in Sarajevo, where a red chair stands for each victim. Then the story shifts to Ireland, where one day a stranger comes and turns the contemplative, quiet and boring life of the villagers on its head. At first I found this part very pleasant to read, but I kept wondering what this has to do with Sarajevo. It became clear in about half of the story. This stranger was none other than the butcher of Sarajevo, who of course was a Devil in contemplative Ireland. His victim Fidelma had to flee after a very tragic experience. She traveled to London. There she experienced what it means to be a refugee. She gets accommodation with an African woman who came to England years ago as a refugee. She gets to know the stories of the refugee women. It also topics such as the mutilation of the female genital part, rape and suppression. Fidelma takes a long time to open up to others and find her way. She is also encouraged to participate in the negotiations of her torturer at the War Tribunal in The Hague.
      What I like about this book is that the devilish is called by name. What I don't like is that the second part (London) is a very own story - very valuable - but somehow too little linked to the first part.
    • 2/5

      Jan 20, 2018

      A war criminal from Bosnia using the name Vlad moves into a small Irish town. He sets up an "alternative medicine" practice and rents a room from Fidelma. Fidelma and her husband are childless. The man's personality makes him quite popular with the people of the town. Fidelma conceives Vlad's child about the time his true identity is discovered. He is imprisoned; she loses the child, separates from her husband, and moves to London. I won't reveal the remainder of the plot. The narrator's voice shifted frequently, making it difficult at times to follow the story. A lof of questions the reader may ask remain unanswered. The novel is perhaps a bit "too contemporary" for my reading taste.
    • 3/5

      Jan 4, 2018

      I listened to this book which was narrated by Juliet Stevenson. She did a very good job but unfortunately I didn't particularly like the book. The subject matter is gruesome and I didn't think the construction of the plot was very good.

      The title comes from the memorial put up in Sarajevo twenty years after the Siege of Sarajevo war began. A total of 11,541 red chairs were placed in the main street, including 643 small chairs to represent children, to commemorate the people killed during the 44 months of the siege. A fictional Serbian war criminal turns up in a small Irish town as a natural healer and therapist. Of course, Doctor Vlad hides his true identity and his charismatic personality soon wins over the townspeople. He rents office space from Fidelma, a married woman who has been unable to have children, and soon Fidelma comes under his sway. She begs Vlad to conceive a child with her and he agrees after some possibly feigned reluctance. Just about the time Fidelma discovers that she is pregnant Vlad's true identity is discovered and he is arrested. A crucial plot point with horrific details deals with Fidelma losing the baby and separating from her husband. From then on it seems like Fidelma is floundering through life. She moves to London and takes a job as a night cleaner. When she loses that job she is offered a post at a greyhound rescue centre in Kent. She then moves on from that to attend the war crimes trial for her former lover. The details of his crimes convince her that he is evil but she never seems to berate herself for falling for him. The ending of the story did not include anything more about Vlad which seemed strange to me. Or maybe I just lost interest as the ending approached and I missed what points the author intended us to reach.

      The Guardian called this book breathtaking, a masterpiece and spectacular and said "Holding you in its clutches from first page to last, it dares to address some of the darkest moral questions of our times while never once losing sight of the sliver of humanity at their core." I guess I slipped out of its clutches at some point.
    • 3/5

      Apr 25, 2017

      This is a powerful book, dealing with a difficult event in our history. There is certainly much to discuss here, making this a good book club choice. However, as a novel, I struggled with it. In the first part of the book, there are many small-town, quirky characters. The book has the feeling of the movie, Waking Ned Devine. It raises issues of whether we can really know someone; about how we are vulnerable when someone seems to be the answer to our deepest needs. This is a strong story line, but we lose track of it in the second part of the book when Fidelma moves to the England. Here, the author seems to be exploring the immigrant/refugee experience and the way victims are often punished and isolated. Then, Fidelma attends the war crimes tribunal hearing of her former lover and the author seems to be talking about forgiveness and closure. A lot of different themes that make the reading of this book somewhat disjointed. I think the character development could have been stronger -- I don't know what (if anything) Fidelma has learned from her experience and how she has changed as a result. Or if she has.
    • 3/5

      Feb 12, 2017

      I had a job getting into this; when I finally sat down to 'blitz' it, I found it intriguing, very different in structure to anything else I'd read ... but I couldn't summon up any feeling for our lead character, Fidelma.
      The narrative opens in a little Irish town, where a mysterious alternative healer has arrived - Dr Vlad. Local woman Fidelma McBride, childless, married to a much older husband, falls in love - and sees an opportunity to have a much longed-for child. But only later does it come out that Dr Vlad is a war criminal, on the run from the former Yugoslavia, where he orchestrated horrific genocide...

      (spoiler alert) As a consequence of her actions, Fidelma too becomes a migrant. Cast off by her husband and community, she finds herself living a very different life in London, working in menial jobs, sleeping in others' spare rooms, mixing with other immigrants at a local centre, where they tell their stories...

      The author certainly brings home the horrors of genocide, war and brutality, but she writes from such a broad spectrum, characters whom we only meet briefly describing their experiences, that it somehow dilutes the emotion aroused in the reader.
    • 5/5

      Dec 4, 2016

      A rather harrowing novel about evil, how quickly one's life can unravel, and how judgment can be both a destructive and a healing force.
    • 4/5

      Nov 27, 2016

      This novel is about a stranger, who calls himself a faith healer and his dealings with a romantic woman in a small, west-coast Irish village. Not only she, but the whole village and especially the women, are fast under the spell of this charismatic stranger from the Balkans. The consequences for her fatal attraction and her fall for this man who is, as it turns out a war criminal, has unimaginable consequences. I found the story, with all the different plots, turnings, dialogues and developments, literally terribly good and moving. I felled so much for Fidelma Mc Bride, but also for the other people who fled for war who she meets when she herself has to fly for her neighbours, to London. As Julie Meyerson said in the Gardian of 15-11-2015: " The real genius of this novel – and I don’t use the word lightly – is to take us right up close to worlds that we normally only read about in newspapers, to make us sweat and care about them".
    • 4/5

      Sep 4, 2016

      Edna O'Brien prefaces the book with a note telling what the Little Red Chairs signify. In 2012, to commemorate the Siege of Sarajevo, a red chair was placed in the high street for each person killed. The total number of chairs were 11541. 643 of these were small, for children.
      Clearly, this was not meant to be a happy book. And it is not. It is violent, cruel, dys-happy. And beautifully, bitingly eloquent. No one skewers evil people quite like Edna O'Brien. I took one star off because of one chapter- it was nauseatingly violent, and certainly not for the faint of heart.
      A man moves to a quiet village in Ireland, starts a holistic healing business, charms the locals, and is arrested en route to a group poetry reading at Yeats' grave. Turns out, he is one of the orchestrators of the Siege of Sarajevo, and is a horrendous war criminal. He leaves one of the locals, Fidelma, who has cuckolded her husband for him, pregnant. What happens to Fidelma next is an echo of Sarajevo's progress- violence, grief, justice, and, hopefully someday, healing.
      This story has a bit of a personal edge for me. I worked with a pharmacy technician who moved her family to the US from the former Yugoslavia, to escape the violence and to prevent her son's mandatory military service. She was a pharmacist there, and her husband was a pediatric dentist. In Iowa, he was an orderly at a nursing home. Their licenses did not transfer to the US. But her children are safe, and doing very well for themselves. Her story is not uncommon- I've worked with many from the former Yugoslavia who came to Iowa, giving up their lives there to be safe. The stories they all have told are horrific, and the men responsible for the atrocities there are monsters.
      The man this book is based upon, Radovan Karadzic, was sentenced to 40 years of prison for genocide on March 26, 2016- 3 days before this book was released in the US.
    • 2/5

      Aug 11, 2016

      I couldn't agree more with "wanderroxybooks" I had the same exact experience and reaction to the book. The narration alone was a bit unorganized and confusing. It starts off with mini narrations from different characters in the story that makes you believe that it would be about their collective perspectives with this new and intriguing stranger known as Dr. Vlad coming to their small village, and then boom out of nowhere the last half focuses on one of the characters. I disliked all the characters in this book, I couldn't feel a connection to anyone. I felt like the story lacked depth and never really developed. It was a disappointment to me.
    • 4/5

      Jul 16, 2016

      This roman a clef is the story of Fidelma, an Irish woman who falls under the spell of Dr. Vladimir Dragan, who comes to their small town as a healer and "sex therapist". His character is based on Radovan Karadžić, the "Butcher of Bosnia". Told from various POVs, including that of Vlad as he tries to escape the consequences of his brutal murderous orders as a political leader in Bosnia, the narrative is at times poetic, at times simple, but always beautiful and moving. At least twice, I thought "well, she (O'Brien) has just gone too far afield now," but each time she exquisitely pulled me back to the main narrative thread and the characters, scenes, and story reconfigured as a cohesive whole. Never an easy read, I absolutely recommend it for its insight into the character, Fidelma, both victim and phoenix; she is captured through an impressionistic style blended expertly with pragmatic and vivid scenes of torture and murder. O'Brien's narrative never slides into gratuitous violence but neither does it flinch in the face of humanity's brutality and rage.
    • 5/5

      Jul 4, 2016

      Book recommendations sites keep steering me towards Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls, but The Little Red Chairs is the first of her novels that I have read. Although it seems to be quite different from her earlier works, on the basis of her wonderful writing and character development, I will definitely be seeking out more.

      The Little Red Chairs is not a fun easy read (although it has its moments of humor). The story revolves around a charismatic foreigner who arrives in the small Irish town of Cloonoila to set up practice as an alternative healer. The townsfolk are wary of him at first, but when he alleviates a woman's arthritic pain, others begin to visit Dr. Vlad's office. As much as his mystical abilities, his stories, his philosophical conversations, his knowledge of the natural world, and his grounding in the arts all draw them in--one woman in particular, Fidelma, a young wife who desperately longs for a child. As the novel develops, it becomes more Fidelma's story than Vlad's. It's a story of faith, love, betrayal, secrets, brutality, kindness, revenge, perseverance, and, above all, hope.

      If you've read anything about this book, you know that the character of Dr. Vlad is presumed to be based in part on war criminal Radovan Karadzic. The book is prefaced by a short paragraph explaining its title

      On the 6th of April 2012, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the start of the siege or Sarjevo by Bosnian Serb forces, 11, 541 red chairs were laid out in rows along the eight hundred metres of the Sarajevo high street. One chair for every Sarajevan killed during the 1,425 days of siege. Six hundred and forty-three small chairs represented the children killed by snipers and the heavy artillery fired from the surrounding mountains.

      O'Brien could have taken the easy path and made this a simple tale of Evil (with a capital E) comes to town. Instead, she gives us the more complicated story of Fidelma as a means of showing us precisely how a man like Vlad (or Karadzik) gains people's trust, how it affects the lives it leaves in its wake, and how this one woman comes to terms with what has happened and learns to rejoin the world of the living and (hopefully) the good.

      I don't want to give away any more plot details; suffice it to say that this is a totally absorbing read, at times horrifying, at other times frustrating, or maddening, and sometimes even hopeful. I hear from others who are longtime fans of O'Brien that this book is nothing like her others--which is probably why a number of them, their expectations shattered, disliked it. But for me, it's a definite 5-star read. It has been awhile since I've actually felt like I was experiencing a character's emotions and mental states, and even though these were not always pleasant, I was completely wrapped up in Fidelma's progress. That, to me, is the sign of an effective writer. As for comments about the book's three parts seeming disjointed, well, not for me. Everything isn't wrapped up in a happy little knot at the end, and Fidelma's emotions are wide-ranging and often ambiguous. But isn't that really the way life is? There are indeed meaningful connections between the parts of the story and the people in it, but O'Brien wisely leads her reader along, giving him or her the task of finding those connections instead of spelling them out. In other words, The Little Red Chairs is a book that asks you to think, asks you to feel, asks you to intuit. And its an exhilarating task indeed.
    • 3/5

      Jun 23, 2016

      This is an unusual and disconcerting novel. I'll try to convey a few thoughts without rehashing the plot. . . .

      I'm a fan of Edna O'Brien's short stories, which are masterful. But until now I hadn't read one of her novels. THE LITTLE RED CHAIRS shows off her gift for powerful short set pieces, which provide the building blocks for her novel from different characters and perspectives. She can give us so much with so few words -- the economy and precision of her language is remarkable. Much of what I liked best about this novel were these short gems, such as: "On the Veranda" (where we meet the entire kitchen staff of a country inn, learn their personal histories, and feel their camaraderie in just a few pages); "Into the Woods" (an unauthorized field trip seen through the eyes of the schoolchildren, which goes quickly and eerily wrong); and "Home" (a tender and funny rendition of a Shakespeare production in a London refugee center). These and other bits are worth the price of admission alone.

      Not many writers could create so many note-perfect characters in one novel, from the precocious 6-year-old Mistletoe (her letter to Fidelma is hilarious) to the quiet widow James. Even if we only meet them for a few pages, each character feels real and true.

      That said, I'm not sure the novel entirely worked as the fully realized sum of its parts. It felt a bit disjointed at times. The haunted main character, Fidelma, mostly holds the story together as she moves from Ireland to London to The Hague. O'Brien portrays Fidelma's courage and dignity as she comes to terms with her past while trying to survive and create some sort of future for herself.

      I started THE LITTLE RED CHAIR with very high expectations, not just because I've enjoyed reading O'Brien's short fiction, but because the novel involves the wars and genocide of the former Yugoslavia. I'm very interested in that conflict and I've read many books about it (both fiction and nonfiction). Yet I was a bit surprised that this aspect of her story didn't entirely succeed for me. I didn't feel that I learned anything new about those events or gained any new insights into evil through her portrait of Dr. Vlad. Sometimes the backstory of those events felt a bit forced, as various characters stepped forward with their personal stories. It's a morally complex novel, with tough questions and no easy answers. Credit to O'Brien for that.

      The most compelling part of the novel for me is the section where Fidelma makes her way among the refugee community in London. O'Brien does a fine job of showing me a side of London I didn't really know. It's an unflinching look at the poverty, struggles, and bureaucratic indignities of that harsh existence. But we also see the sense of community, the resilience, and the work being done by charity organizations.

      This is honest writing with a lot of heart, culminating in the final section with the refugee production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which is terrific. It's a fine and fitting ending to her book.

      (Thanks to Little, Brown for an advance copy via a giveaway. Receiving a free copy did not affect the content of my review.)
    • 4/5

      Jun 10, 2016

      A chilling but mesmerizing roman a clef about an Irish woman, Fidelma, and her village taken in by the strange Dr. Vladimir Dragan, who comes to their small town as a "sex therapist". His character is based on Radovan Karadzic, the "Butcher of Bosnia". Details of atrocities in Bosnia follow, also the infatuation with him and its horrific aftermath of Fidelma's fate; her life in London; then Dragan's war crimes trial in the Hague. This book will long stay with me. The "little red chairs" of the title were a memorial to children killed in the Bosnian ethnic cleansing, among the more than 11 thousand representing everyone.

      Recommended.
    • 5/5

      May 30, 2016

      Philip Roth wrote that “The great Edna O’Brien has written her masterpiece.” As an admirer of Roth, I take his opinion as of high value. O’Brien is a recent discovery for me, and her first, and most well-known novel The Country Girls, set me on a path to making her one of my favorites. Her latest novel, The Little Red Chairs, tells the story of the genocide which occurred following the breakup of Yugoslavia, which came into existence in the aftermath of World War I. It was invaded by the Axis powers in 1941. The monarchy was abolished in 1945. The country was broken up into 6 independent provinces, but old wounds were re-opened, and eventually a war broke out with one side utilizing ethnic cleansing on Muslim enemies. In 1998 a siege of 1,425 days of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces began. On the 20th anniversary of the siege, 11, 541 red chairs were laid out in rows on the high street. Each chair represented a Sarajevan killed. Six Hundred and forty three small chairs represented children killed by snipers and the heavy artillery fired on the city. O’Brien’s novel, The Little Red Chairs, details the lives of individuals who escaped the bombardment, and one war criminal who left the city in secrecy and traveled to Ireland to avoid prosecution.

      O’Brien begins her novel in a sweet, simple, and pleasing way. but one day, a mysterious stranger appeared. She writes of, “the visitor’s card, with the name Dr. Vladimir Dragan, in black lettering, plus a host of degrees after it. Further down, [it] read Healer and Sex Therapist” (9). At first the townspeople were suspicious, but after a few women found relief for arthritis and other ailments of age, he became an accepted member of the community. Finally, his true identity is revealed, and Dragan is arrested.

      Part Two of the novel deals with the trial and the suffering recounted under Dragan. Although his real identity was never revealed, many victims of his regime came forward to testify. The actual man arrested and tried was Radovan Karadžić, and he fits many of the descriptions of Dragan. I could not find any evidence that Karadžić ever visited Ireland. Part Three actually details the trial at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. When the prisoner is brought into the courtroom to confront the accused, O’Brien Writes, “When Vlad entered the trial chamber, she shook uncontrollably, as if he was someone come back from the dead. Inconceivable that he was still alive, or had not descended into madness or infirmity. But there he was, in a smart suit, a nondescript tie, courteous, disarming, still in possession of those insatiate powers that made him so feared. His guard stood stock still behind him, girt around his waist a belt with a set of keys and a revolver and he seemed curiously roused as he gazed about. From the corner of her eye, Fidelma saw how the four women seized the moment. It was as if a sudden energy possessed them, an urgency, as they stared unequivocally into that trial chamber, making their abhorrence known. He did not look out at the court and as he sat, one of his team, a young woman, crossed and whispered something to him, to which he gave a slight, affirmative smile” (259).

      While part one did have an air of suspense, it did not compare to the horror stories some of the victims described in the final chapter. As we must never forget the perpetrators of Holocaust, slavery, and all instances of genocide, we must add the “Beast of Bosnia” to the list. 5 stars.

      --Jim, 5/19/16
    • 4/5

      May 4, 2016

      This is a book about loss, judgement and about appreciating what you have. Religion and nationality are other themes here. Fidelma, the protagonist, has married the wrong man, he being too old for her and they not being able to have children. She is duped by the charismatic & handsome bohemian who arrives in their small town. He has, however, a horrific and barbaric past which follows him and destroys all associated with him. Fidelma's decision wrecks her life and those around her. She spends the rest of the book trying to atone, make sense of her life and get it back to some even keel.

      The book is thought provoking. At times it is very laboured and frustrating as one tries to understand the storyline. At times you can feel the different characters pain, their search for a home and their desire to be treated as human beings. It is here that O Brien's writing is most powerful and effective. Most characters in the book are living in exile, well away from their homeland and trying to set roots where they are not wanted. Is it for a better life..... it seems not! Will they be ethnically cleansed at some stage in the future..... What is nationality? What is normal? What is being happy? Most of the people in this book are broken and it would seem irreparably so.

      The Irish section of this book is weaker than the English section. The Belgian section is painful and shows the depth of Fidelma's despair, confusion and the complete loss of her sense of self becomes apparent there even if O Brien tries to wall paper the cracks at the end of the story ..... unsuccessfully, just like the haphazard version of Midsummer's Night Dream.

      This book mixes the sublime with the banal and the downright ordinary and for me it fails to have the effect it could.
    • 4/5

      May 2, 2016

      The Little Red Chairs, Edna O’Brien, author; Juliet Stevenson, narrator
      In March, of 2016, Radovan Karadzik was sentenced to 40 years in prison for crimes against humanity by the United Nations Court in The Hague. He led the siege of Sarajevo, beginning in 1992 and continuing until 1995, in which thousands of Sarajevans were slaughtered by the Serbs. Karadzik, sometimes called the Butcher of Bosnia, is the very real person O’Brien has based her novel upon. Eluding capture for more than a decade, one of his alias identities was Dr. David Dragan. O’Brien makes use of that last name in her novel. In April of 2012, on the 20th anniversary of the siege of Sarajevo, thousands of empty chairs were laid out in the streets to commemorate the Sarajevan lives that were lost. The book takes its title from that event.
      The author has placed Karadzik in the person of a character named Dr. Vladimir Dragan, also known as Vuk, which means wolf and is a fearsome name. The novel is an account of the time in which he supposedly eluded arrest in the fictional town of Cloonoila, in Ireland. Disguised as a healer and sex therapist, sometimes playfully called Dr. Vlad, he was intelligent, understood human nature and was quite likeable. He carried about him an air of mystery and mysticism and exhibited an unusual knowledge of many things, like the qualities of certain plants and vegetables to benefit health and a knowledge of psychiatry which helped him analyze the needs of the people. His beautiful head of white hair and his full beard, coupled with his soft-spoken presence, made him attractive to the women. One woman, Fidelma, was especially drawn to him. She confided to him, in one of their conversations, that she dearly wanted a child. The story of their relationship and its aftermath was a difficult part of the story to read, but it is used to explain, graphically, how violent and brutal the war experience was for the ordinary citizens of Sarajevo.
      Myths and legends and poetry embellish the tale. Although it takes place in the present time, there is a feeling of the past pervading the story and the location of the events is often hazy. It took me awhile to figure out that part of it was in Ireland and part in England. Perhaps it was because of the allusions to Dracula and Transylvania, and a bit of the occult, that I was distracted and believed it was taking place in European countries with a more fabled history.
      I found the story interesting mostly in its lyrical and descriptive presentation which was sometimes mesmerizing, owing also to the exceptional narration on the audio by Juliet Stevenson. I felt as if I was in the actual countryside observing the scenes. From some scenes, I actually wanted to avert my eyes. It was through the experiences related by many of the witnesses and victims, as they exposed the violence and brutality that had been inflicted upon them and their families during the siege, that the story truly plays out and Dragan’s (Karadzik’s) arrogant and cruel personality is imagined and presented.
      At times, the number of characters was overwhelming, and at other times, the story did not knit as well together as possible, leaving odd threads hanging about, making it a bit disjointed. Still, it prompted me to do research on the beast in the book, and for that the author deserves much credit. Shining a light on a piece of history that is not known well enough is a worthy effort, even if it is in fictional form. When it is based on a true historic event which touched so many thousands of people, it deserves attention.
    • 5/5

      Jan 23, 2016

      One of Edna O'Brien's best novels to date.
      She really gets under the skin of her characters.
      Highly recommended.
      This digital book was given to me by the publisher via Goodreads in return for an honest unbiased review.