Mother Courage of the Famine

Brendan Graham is more closely associated with music than fiction. He was the composer or author of the two winning Eurovision songs, "Rock `n' Roll Kids" (1994) and "The Voice" (1996) and for nine years he served as the chair of the Irish Music Rights Organisation. He has also served in the Government Task Force to develop Ireland's music industry and he has been cited by the Taoiseach for his "outstanding contribution to the Irish music industry". So a first novel from him - a big novel, indeed an epic novel - comes as something of a surprise.

The Whitest Flower revolves around the invincible and beautiful Ellen "Rua" O'Malley and her triumph over the impossible odds of Ireland's Great Famine. At the beginning of the novel, she is as devoted to her spiritual faith as she is to her children and her physical love for her husband, Michael. Being the only child of a spoiled priest, she longs for a large family and, just when she learns that she is pregnant with her fourth child, the blight sets in; the divide between the haves and the have-nots widens; lives are lost, including Michael's, and Ellen joins virtually half the nation in migration, thus becoming a part of the great Irish Diaspora.

A condition of Ellen Rua O'Malley's emigration to Australia, however, is that she leaves behind three of her children as a bond. The grief is enormous, but with faith that her emigration will eventually provide them all with a better life, she goes to the Vineyard of the Empire, the Barossa Valley, where she finds herself unwittingly engrossed in a web of corruption and intrigue.

Emigration from Ireland does not in any way exempt Ellen O'Malley from disease, however: from the moment she leaves Ireland, illness stays by her. She is plagued throughout her journey with sickness, guilt, longing and grief.

From Australia, Ellen is transported to the fever sheds of Canada's Grosse Ile and, from there, to Boston where she is hated, as are all Irish Catholic immigrants at the time. Tenacious, Ellen makes a reasonable go of importing wines and spirits and, all the time, dreams of being united with her children while shrugging off a long string of would-be suitors.

When Ellen O'Malley eventually makes it back to Ireland, reunion with her children is forestalled. The novel, ending in despair, offers not full closure but an unlikely portrait of a red-headed woman who is capable of overcoming all adversity in a time of pervasive hopelessness.

The Whitest Flower is a romantic novel set in the least romantic periods of Ireland's history. It's a tearjerker and clearly aimed at an IrishAmerican readership that clings tenaciously to romantic misconceptions regarding Ireland's Great Famine. At times, the novel is implausible and frequently verbose. Even the acknowledgments are overly long, as are the Author's Note and all annotations. Admittedly, such verbosity comes as something of a surprise from a musician and lyricist who must, in all other aspects of his life, be succinct, even abbreviated. The book is most certainly too big, too epic in scope, for a first novel, but Graham should be congratulated nonetheless for his efforts, for this novel will delight many.

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