Mother and Son

Name: Mother and Son
ISBN: 9787532794713

科尔姆·托宾 / 柏栎Shanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaMay 2024

4.0

Word count: 124K words
Chapters: 12
ISBN: 9787532794713

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Summary

Mother and Son is Colm Tóibín's first short story collection. The nine stories all revolve around the relationship between mothers and sons, each capturing a turning point—a moment when the delicate balance between them is broken, or when their understanding of each other shifts. In one, a man buries his mother and tries to wash away his grief in a night of abandon; in another, a famous singer wins over a packed house but cannot please the son she has not seen in years. And in the final and finest story, "A Long Winter," a young man searches the snow-covered mountains for his mother, who has run away from home. Tóibín portrays men and women of every kind with precision, elegance, and fluency—people bound by convention, by feelings they cannot put into words, unable to escape the shadow of the past. Many are helplessly mired in the mud of life, with no other choice. Through these stories, Tóibín captures human fragility and longing with startling accuracy—moving and unforgettable.

Editor's review

Tobin's debut collection, nine stories all poised at turning points in mother-son relationships: funerals, backstage after a performance, deep snow in the mountains—moments when the balance breaks. He writes with restraint, relying not on dramatic conflict but on pressing unspeakable feeling into gesture and silence; reading it is like being tapped lightly with a blunt instrument. The finest, "A Long Winter," is nearly a short novel in scope: a young man goes into the mountains to search for his mother who has run away, and Tobin layers the Irish snow over the desolation within, revealing the unhurried endurance of his later novels. This book suits slow reading in quiet hours, with a little space between stories to let the aftertaste disperse. For readers familiar with Tobin's novels, it shows his mastery of the short form; for those who are not, it is a low-threshold door into his world.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Adult readers who love literary short stories and prefer restrained narration
Readers interested in mother-son relationships and family emotion
Tobin novel readers who want to catch up on his short fiction
Readers who want to finish a complete story in fragments of time

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting strong plot and fast pacing
Readers who prefer clear endings and emotional release
Younger readers with little experience of adult emotional predicaments

Reading tips

Pause after each story and recall in which sentence that turning moment occurred.
Read "A Long Winter" first, then go back to the earlier stories and feel Tobin's power of convergence.
Keep a pen handy to mark passages where gesture replaces emotion, for easy rereading.

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

版权信息
借口（上）
借口（下）
一首歌
关键所在
著名的蓝雨衣
家中的神父
路上
三个朋友
暑期工作
长冬
译后记

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a short story collection?

It is a short story collection with nine stories, all centered on mother-son relationships. The last story, "A Long Winter," is longer, but the book as a whole is still a collection, not a novel.

I haven't read any other Tobin. Can I start with this?

Yes. It is Tobin's first short story collection; the stories stand alone and do not depend on earlier work. It is also a fitting entry into his restrained, delicate style.

Is it suitable for reading in one sitting?

Not really. The nine stories are emotionally dense, and reading them straight through can dull the response. Better to read one or two at a time and leave time to digest—especially "A Long Winter," which deserves a quiet stretch of its own.

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About the author

科尔姆·托宾 Author

Colm Tóibín is a major contemporary Irish writer. Ten of his works are included in this collection, spanning novels, short-story collections and essays, and are commonly grouped under foreign literature, essays and miscellaneous writings, and classic works. His representative works include Nora Webster, The Master, The Blackwater Lightship, The Magician, Long Island, The House of Names and The Testament of Mary, as well as Wilde, Yeats, Joyce and Their Fathers. His writing often centres on family relationships, emigration and return, personal memory and identity, with a restrained and understated touch, revealing his characters' complex emotions and psychological depths through everyday detail. He is also known for writing about literary history and writers' lives, as in The Master, which focuses on Henry James. Because public information is limited, his early life and honours are not discussed here; readers may explore his narrative style and literary influence through the works mentioned above.

柏栎 Author

Bai Li is an author about whom little public information is available. At present, only six of her works are listed on the Chinese book site, commonly categorized under foreign literature and classic works. Her representative titles include Nora Webster, The Master, The Magician, Long Island, Mother and Son, and Five Bridges. Judging from the titles and categories, her work largely involves the translation or related writing of foreign literary works, with themes leaning toward classic and serious literature and touching on family, life, and art. Because basic details such as biography, nationality, and dates of birth and death are not recorded, it is difficult to form a complete judgment of her writing career and overall style. Nevertheless, these works show her sustained engagement in introducing foreign literature to Chinese readers and deserve attention on the strength of the texts themselves.