''Grace Notes'' is a novel by

Bernard MacLaverty Bernard MacLaverty (born 14 September 1942) is a Northern Irish fiction writer and novelist. His novels include '' Cal'' and '' Grace Notes''. He has written five books of short stories. Biography MacLaverty was born in no. 73 Atlantic Avenue ...

, first published in 1997. It was shortlisted for the

Booker Prize for Fiction The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...

, among other honors.

Plot summary

The book centers around the

postpartum depression Postpartum depression (PPD), also called perinatal depression, is a mood disorder which may be experienced by pregnant or postpartum women. Symptoms include extreme sadness, low energy, anxiety, crying episodes, irritability, and extreme cha ...

of its female protagonist, Catherine McKenna, a

Northern Irish The people of Northern Ireland are all people born in Northern Ireland and having, at the time of their birth, at least one parent who is a British Nationality Law, British citizen, an Irish nationality law, Irish citizen or is otherwis ...

music teacher and composer living in Scotland. She faces preparations for her father's funeral, endures disturbing visions regarding her recently born daughter, Anna, and suffers restrictions imposed by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

on her family and her childhood. She engages her depression through the cathartic and intuitive composition of music; later in the book, she begins to craft a master symphony. The novel ends with a powerful live radio broadcast of her symphony. The title is an explicit reference to

grace note A grace note is a kind of music notation denoting several kinds of musical ornament (music), ornaments. It is usually printed smaller to indicate that it is melodically and harmonically nonessential. When occurring by itself, a single grace no ...

s, which a character in the novel terms as "the notes between the notes". The redeeming power of art is indeed a prominent theme. In addition, critics have considered the concept of fleeting and minute musical notes as descriptive of the novel's style.

Critical response

''Kirkus Reviews'' viewed the novel as a "lyrical novel" that ambitiously attempts to speak about "the interior life of an artist struggling to balance the urgent demands of creating music and the equally pressing demands of life." The critic(s) praised the complexity of Catherine's character, while also balancing this with an acknowledgement that this overall did "overshadow everyone else in a novel guided less by 'story' than by musical tides and perturbations;" they also noted that "MacLaverty's mildly impressionistic approach esults in theslow, even anticlimactic pace of some scenes." The reviewer for ''The Washington Post'', Ambrose Clancy, found the excessive clerical and saintly characterization of Catherine's life and predispositions to be overly persistent, distracting, or frustrating. Even though a "subtle, naturalistic stylist, MacLaverty is anything but deft in proclaiming Catherine heaven-bound without sin. The novel is saturated with, practically drowned in, religious images and emotions." The examples they give include descriptions by characters on how music is connected to religion, the history of figures like St. Cecelia and St. Gerard, and the sacred feeling that Catherine experiences when her works are performed in a retrofitted chapel. Clancy admits that he's "a gifted writer, with great control, beautiful rhythms to his prose, and insight," and that the novel has some authentically powerful elements, which "peak with Catherine trying to raise her child, write music, and stay sane... Catherine, like many first-time mothers, is overwhelmed by motherhood." However, "the novelist's art doesn't save this book. Catherine is cloyingly pure, and MacLaverty's sledgehammer notions about art as religion run from the quietly sentimental to the loudly shamanistic." In ''The Richmond Review'', there was much less emphasis on the religiosity of the book, though an agreement on MacLaverty's capability in writing: "the text is made of bite sized, staccato sentences of short, quiet authority that build brick by brick amidst gloriously naturalistic dialogue; this precision of language avoids all sentimentality." Instead of criticizing the ecclesiastic elements in it, Dickson heralds the "musical metaphors

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

fill t, with "tone, texture and form recombining as atherinegets better, rebuilding the links to her past."

Awards

{, class="wikitable" , +Awards for ''Grace Notes'' !Year !Award !Result ! , - , rowspan="4" , 1997 , Booker Prize , Shortlist , , - , James Tait Black Memorial Prize – Fiction , Shortlist , , - , Saltire Society Literary Award for Scottish Book of the Year , Winner , , - , Whitbread Award for Novel , Shortlist , {{Cite web , title=Past Winners , url=http://www.costabookawards.com/downloads/PastWinners.pdf , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091229131124/http://www.costabookawards.com/downloads/PastWinners.pdf , archive-date=2009-12-29 , access-date=2022-02-07 , website=Costa Book Awards

References

External

*Harte, Liam
Literary EncyclopediaThe Man Booker Prize 2007
1997 British novels Novels by Bernard MacLaverty Novels set in Scotland Novels about music Jonathan Cape books