Quotes from Joseph Caldwell

Today, Aaron decided, he would begin to grieve in earnest. He would walk the lonely beach, mocked by gulls, uncaring, his every step a stately rebuke to the malign forces that had blighted his fate. His was the tragedy of a man who couldn't have his own way, and he intended to make known his anguish in the solemn solitude that only a stretch of sand, a suspiring sea, and a beetling cliff could provide.

Aaron, in preparation for the event, had been initiated by Lolly in the ways of the Kerry dances and had proved a pupil of stunning receptivity. Lolly suspected some genetic memory but wondered as well if her husband was yet another example of that breed that had flourished among the Danes and the Normans who, once arrived on Irish shores, became more Irish than the Irish—a historical phenomenon from which the English had exempted themselves in a somewhat ornery fashion.

hands, spine and legs all commandeered for the task. The trapdoor had no choice but to spring open. Kitty ascended to the parapet. It was the sea off to the southwest she chose to watch during her ruminations. But Maggie Tulliver and Mary Ann had been superceded by Brid and Taddy. By what she'd just seen. Not only a fleeting glimpse, a quick, almost teasing,