Nora Webster

Written by Colm Tóibín, Nora Webster (2014) is a historical novel that follows the titular character, a young woman who is struggling to raise her four young children, process her grief, and reinvent her life after her husband passes away. In 2015, the novel won the Hawthornden Prize, and it has also received numerous other prestigious award nominations. 

Throughout his career, Colm Tóibín has alternated between fiction and non-fiction, producing works such as Brooklyn (2009), which won the Costa Novel Award and was adapted into a successful film. He has also explored themes of faith and doubt with The Testament of Mary (2012), a reimagining of the Virgin Mary’s life. He remains an influential figure in contemporary literature and is known for his ability to weave personal and historical narratives with quiet power and precision. With Nora Webster, Tóibín incorporates key autobiographical details and delves into The Stifling Effects of Small Communities and The All-Consuming Nature of Grief as the protagonist deals with a tumultuous world in which political turmoil serves as a backdrop for personal struggles.

This guide refers to the 2015 Penguin Books edition.

Content Warning: Both the source material and this guide contain descriptions of death.

Plot Summary

Nora Webster lives in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland in the late 1960s, struggling to raise her four children alone after the recent death of her husband, Maurice. She has not worked since the early days of her marriage, and she is unsure whether her widow’s pension will provide for her family. She also feels caught in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small community in which everyone knows her name, her story, and her struggles. She wishes that people would simply leave her alone.

Nora’s eldest child, Fiona, is away at university, training to be a teacher, while her youngest, Conor, is a precocious schoolboy who pays close attention to everyone around him. The middle children include Aine, who will soon leave for university if her grades are good enough, and Donal, a 13-year-old boy who was very close with their father. Since Maurice’s death, Donal has developed a stutter and has become more withdrawn, which concerns Nora. Together with Nora’s sisters, brother-in-law, and aunts, Nora tries to ensure that her children are cared for, but although she loves her children, her grief prevents her from giving them crucial emotional support. The children all miss their father, but they miss Nora just as much because she shuts them out. When Nora tells the children that the holiday house in Cush must be sold, they lash out angrily, fearing that without the beach house, they will lose their memories of spending time by the sea with Maurice.

Nora makes arrangements to sell the holiday house, but she is still concerned about money, so she grudgingly takes a charitable job offer from her former employers, the Gibney family, even though she will have to work alongside acrimonious Francie Kavanagh, whom she has spent years trying to avoid. Francie runs the office with an iron fist and is often at war with Elizabeth Gibney, the daughter of the owner who works occasionally in the office. 

While Nora is at work, Donal and Conor must take care of themselves at home, but Nora grows concerned about how the two boys are handling their father’s absence. She also notes that her sons fear her Aunt Josie. In a tense conversation, Josie reminds Nora that she cared for the boys while Nora was at Maurice’s deathbed; the boys therefore associate Josie’s presence with their father’s death and their mother’s absence. Meanwhile, Fiona is upset by Nora’s suggestion that she may need to remain in Wexford to help with the boys. (Nora once made similar sacrifices for her family, and she now hopes that her daughter will help her.)

As Nora deals with the difficult situation in the office, the children struggle to process their grief. Donal, who still has a stutter, becomes interested in photography. His aunt and uncle support his interest by building him a dark room in their house. Meanwhile, Conor becomes increasingly anxious and begins scrutinizing the lives of those around him. After leaving school, Nora’s daughter Aine moves to Dublin to attend university and becomes more involved in politics, paying particular attention to the brewing trouble in Northern Ireland between Catholic and Protestant communities.

During this time, Nora becomes interested in music and builds relationships with two local women, Phyllis Langdon and Laurie O’Keefe. Nora associates with a local society that meets to listen to records, and she also receives singing lessons from Laurie. Nora’s mother once sang in the choir, but Nora never pursued her own talents in this area. Now, whenever she sings along with the piano, she feels a strange stirring within her and begins to work through her unprocessed emotions. She also reduces her hours at the unpleasant office, which is made possible by increases in the widow’s pension. These increases encourage Nora to take a closer interest in politics, though she finds her political views diverging from others in the community.

Nora’s singing lessons come to a dramatic halt during a failed, embarrassing audition for the local choir. When Laurie hears how badly the choirmaster treated Nora, she criticizes him in the strongest possible terms. 

Meanwhile, Ireland’s political situation escalates, and when Aine goes missing for several days, the family grows worried that she may have been arrested for participation in the political activism against the British presence in Northern Ireland. However, Aine is soon found. 

One day, Donal confesses to his mother that he is struggling to focus on school. He still attends the school where Maurice once taught, and every part of the school reminds him of his dead father. Donal accepts his aunt and uncle’s offer to attend a boarding school, where he will have access to a speech therapist. He struggles at the boarding school at first, but Nora is determined to help him settle in, which he eventually does.

At home, Nora decides to renovate the house. She has not changed many things since Maurice died; even his clothes are still in the closet. As she sets about redecorating the house, she injures herself in her efforts to paint the ceiling and begins taking painkillers and sleeping pills to mitigate her pain and resultant insomnia. During this period of sleep deprivation, she has a haunting dream of Maurice, who ominously warns her that Conor and one other person may die. Still deprived of sleep, Nora is thrown into turmoil. Her Aunt Josie reassures Nora that it was just a dream and helps her to recover over the following weeks. Once Nora is restored to health, she redecorates the house, and Maurice’s clothes are taken away. When Laurie organizes a choral performance, she invites Nora to participate. Finally, in a private moment, Nora burns Maurice’s love letters in a symbolic resolution to move forward with her life.