The Mending Room

Synopsis

Dublin, January 1943. Annie moves through her days with quiet purpose: tending the fires, cycling to her allotment, reading letters at the writing desk where she keeps a bundle tied with ribbon. The city is under the shadow of the Emergency – rationing, blackouts, the memory of bombs falling not a mile up the road – but in Annie’s house the greatest weight is private. Her son Alec left for Burma six years ago to work on a tea plantation, and the world he travelled to has since been consumed by war.

As Annie waits for news, the novel opens outward through a sequence of letters: from Alec, writing home from a paddle steamer on the Irrawaddy, from the orchid-rich forests of the Shan States, and finally from the chaos of a country under invasion; and from his cousin Rose, a painter and naturalist, whose own letters reveal the full story of the journey – its wonders and dangers, its difficult loyalties, and what it cost to find a way home.

Moving between the intimacy of one woman’s household and the sweep of two continents, The Mending Room is a novel about what endures: long marriages, old friendships, the habits of care that outlast happiness. Written with the precision of a poet and the emotional intelligence of a master storyteller, it announces Amanda Bell as a major new voice in Irish fiction.

Praise for This Book

‘Fabulous. Proustian attention to detail, and shimmering language. A joy to read.’ —Donal Ryan

‘A beautifully tender portrayal of a family steeped in love but riven by separation and the breaking tides of history.’ —David Park

Praise for Previous Work

‘(On Undercurrents) I can offer no higher praise of Bell’s prose than that at its best it looks and sounds positively Sebaldian, in its slightly melancholic tone and style and in its conflation of the past with the present.’ —Matthew Paul, Presence

‘(On Riptide) Moving and diverse in its range, Riptide is a sensuous and tender book.’ —Sean Hewitt, The Irish Times

‘(On The Lost Library Book) Wonderfully written and beautifully illustrated, this tale will create real book lovers! To be read and wondered over again and again.’ —Mary Esther Judy, Inis Reading Guide