Castles & Ruins Unraveling Family Mysteries & Literary Legacy in the Irish Countryside by Rue Matthiessen

 This is an ethereal book about the author’s questto search for her past in Ireland. She goes in search of her enigmatic and brilliant parents, together with her husband and ten- year old son. I was interested in this book because Peter Matthiesson’s The Snow Leopard was all the rage when I was young and I bought it again years ago. Peter Matthieson was Rue’s step-father but he brought her up. Deborah, Rue’s beautiful, dreamy mother had a hard time with him because of his receiving all the attention even though she wrote beautifully as well, and his affairs. She died young of cancer. I found it a bit hard to be sympathetic with either parent though, because they were self-absorbed,inadvertently cruel and involved in their own projects. At one stage, like typically artistic, psychodelic parents of the ‘70s, they floated about on LSD most of the time. Deborah was even going to give it to her young daughter as an experiment! Luckily, she decided against it, probably because Peter saw some sense. I liked this book but it was a bit long. However, it was perfect reading for me at a terribly sad time in my life.

I have only been to Ireland once, unfortunately, but I went to a few places mentioned in the book. The luminous descriptions certainly made me want to go back!

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.