I read Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty when it came out in 1997 – nearly 30 years ago! I really loved it and although generally with books I remember themes, atmosphere and how I felt reading it, I rarely remember specifics such as characters or plot. With Grace Notes I can still remember some of the exquisite sentences, so it is a mystery to me why I have only just returned to this writer. Thank goodness for Reading Ireland Month, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books giving me a push!

Midwinter Break (2017) follows Gerry and Stella, a long-term couple now in late middle-age, as they spend a short city break in Amsterdam. Without explicitly stating their situation, but rather presenting it for the reader to observe, MacLaverty conveys their shared history, love and sense of humour.

“I suppose we’re lucky to have each other to ignore.”

They are entirely used to each other’s presence as a constant, both used to considering the other as much from habit as from affection.

“He had to cross the main road rumbling with traffic and reached out to take Stella by the hand before realising she wasn’t with him.”

Yet over the space of the weekend, tensions from deep-rooted differences and past trauma will come to the fore. Stella is undergoing an existential crisis:

“There are important questions to be answered. How can we best live our lives? How can we live good lives?”

She is a lifelong Catholic, while Gerry is an atheist. There is a sense that this need not be an insurmountable difference, except Gerry is dismissive of her beliefs and his drinking is becoming problematic. He foolishly believes his various deceptions go unnoticed by his wife. She has given up trying to get him to understand what religion gives her:

“Prayer was summoned intensity, held there in the head and in the heart. Something good, something spiritual. Articulated, spoken inwardly, wished to the point of aching.”

As they visit tourist destinations such as the Rijksmuseum (where a long description of the old woman reading portraits sounded very much like my avatar picture!) they talk, bicker, laugh, eat, drink. It is a testament to MacLaverty’s excellent characterisation and subtle evocation of their relationship that these surface behaviours exist alongside deeper crises without lessening their seriousness.

He portrays this couple with such a light touch, so although the reader feels they have reached a point of no return in their marriage, where after this mini-break nothing will be the same, it never feels melodramatic.

Similarly, MacLaverty crafts passages of such precise beauty, yet Midwinter Break never feels overwritten.

“Gerry’s hands lay in his lap and his eye was drawn to the window. The end of the daylight striking the glass obliquely created a glittering, grisaille effect. Like ground glass, a layer of dust activated by almost horizontal light transformed the window into Waterford crystal. No expense spared for the Irish pubs of Amsterdam.”

I thought that was just stunning: perfectly evoking an everyday scene so clearly, so poetically, and then undermining it with the gentle comedy of the prosaic final line.

Another description I found so tenderly observant was Gerry meeting his son for the first time:

“You are mine and I will love you till the day I die. He kissed his fingertips and conveyed the kiss to the baby’s face slowly, as if it could be spilled on the way down.”

Midwinter Break is just shy of 250 pages yet it captures the big questions of life alongside finely observed evocations of the everyday. I thought it was entirely wonderful.

The adaptation of the novel is in cinemas now and I’m going to see it on Sunday. Given the two leads, I have high hopes…