The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

Is there more to Judith Hearne than meets the eye? How does she handle her life of solitude?

Plain Judith Hearne spent most of her adult life taking care of her aunt, who has now died and left her on her own, something Judith has wanted for a long time. She has her freedom but by 1950’s standards

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she is a spinster destined to face the rest of her life alone, a prospect she abhors and fears. Npw living in a boarding house Judith meets Mr. Madden, an Irishman returned home after living in America most of his life, who takes an interest in Judith. Judith is used to life not turning out as planned; her refined upbringing prohibits her from speaking up so she deals with the disappointments in her own way. Will her true self break free and show itself to the world and what, if any, repercussions will there be?

Absorbing and disheartening! I could not put it down; my heart broke for Judith Hearne- I wanted to reach out, simultaneously wanting to shake her and comfort her character all at the same time. Don’t read if you are looking for an uplifting account. As a “spinster” I felt her pain. Overall, I was not happy with the way the author ended the novel---felt like I was left hanging a bit -- but still glad I read it!

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Brian Moore has written a haunting, poignant novel about the loneliness of Judith Hearne, whose thin facade of gentility masks a wounded soul searching for a connection to other people and to God. The desperation of her lonely life is palpable, and the only kindness she experiences is from someone

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whose rich, full life is a reminder of the emptiness in her own life. Her hope of finding marriage is dashed when the man in question realizes she isn't someone with money to fund his pipe dreams. Her collapse is total and very painful to witness. Judith Hearne will serve as a reminder that compassion is the least we all owe to other people.

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Life has not been kind to Judith Hearne. Having spent her prime years caring for a demented aunt, she finds herself living alone in a Belfast boarding house, virtually friendless, with her Catholic faith crumbling whilst a growing fondness for alcohol blooms in its place. Her last tenuous chance at

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romance appears to lie with middle-aged bounder James Madden, a fellow boarder who befriends the naive spinster he imagines is an educated woman of considerable means. All this seems like a recipe for disaster and it is; Judith Hearne's modest life quickly unravels in compelling detail.

I don't think I've ever read a more eloquent portrait of a woman in crisis than this one. Many male authors seem to stumble blindly when writing about women, yet Brian Moore has created a complex character who is by turns irritating and heartbreaking. The book is bleak, focusing as it does on the private, almost shameful nature of loneliness and doubt. But The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is also a masterpiece.

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I'm willing to accept that I just wasn't in the mood for this; everyone seems to love the book to death except me. I thought it was decent, but given the choice between this and Richard Yates, I'll take Yates, who picks up most of the same themes (see: title of this book, except for the religious

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faith crisis type thing) but just puts his sentences together more effectively. It may also be that I just dislike novels that take place by and large in boarding houses; I was similarly unmoved by Hamilton's Slaves of Solitude. Although that, too, might have been a mood thing. I suspect I should have read Judith when I read Slaves and vice versa. Such are the contingencies that govern book reviews. Anyway, this is smart, compassionate and ironic all at once. Worth a shot.

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I just read this spectacular masterpiece for the second time. The setting is Ireland and the context is the cultural history of contemporary Ireland. It is a very moving sensitive story so good that I reread it.

I adored this closely observed character study. By the end, my heart broke for Judith Hearne, which was not what I expected from the first two chapters.

Very sad, solitary central character, searching without success for lasting romance. Challenges her faith, goes temporarly crazy, returns to faith because nothing else offers at least some comfort, even if not credible.

What a good book. A sympathetic portrait of a single woman, on the edge where single meets spinster. It makes you aware of how a person's perception of themself, and their world, can differ so much from how others see them. And as a single woman, can you read this and not think, "There but for the

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grace of God, go I."?

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Judith Hearne is lonely old maid who lives in a Belfast boarding house. She has no family, is only intermittently employed, and stretches a meager savings as much as humanly possible just to make sure she can provide herself with the necessities. Her only pleasures in life are attending church

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services and visiting the O'Neills, family friends who dread her weekly visit. It should be noted that this is the high point of Judith's life in the novel. The book chronicles her descent from this very modest summit. It is an exquisitely sad story. No one is really to blame for Judith's circumstance; it's an unhappy convergence of nature, nurture and society that combine to seal Judith's fate. The book reads as if it were the novelization of the story of Eleanor Rigby. I don't think Paul McCartney was influenced either consciously or unconsciously by this story, but the parallels are striking.

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This was an interesting, vivid, harsh and somewhat depressing book. Poor Judith Hearne. I can see why John Banville has praised the book.

I really think praymont's review, below, is spot on.

This early Brian Moore novel was difficult to read because of his moving depiction of a lonely woman whose betrayal by a relative she never betrayed has left her poor and isolated.

This book is utterly ridiculous.....

This is a sad story of an Irish woman of the early 20th century who is let down by every element of society: the church and its priests, men, friends, the medical system. First published in 1955, I suspect it would have been a radical condemnation of traditional Irish society at that time. It's

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interesting to compare to Sally Rooney's popular 21st century depiction of Irish society and see that although many things have changed (notably the role of the church), women still have a long way to go to genuine equality.

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I loved this sad book about a 40 something spinster in 1950s Ireland trying desperately to find a place in the world. Judith Hearne was tied to an ill, controlling aunt through her 20s and missed her chance at marriage. Her lack of money and plain looks don't help either. What begins as a Barbara

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Pym-type story about a nice, lonely, poor, Catholic woman deteriorates to more desperate events as the reader learns more about what all this loneliness has led Judy to.

The author doesn't sugar coat anything and leaves the ending as it realistically would be. I thought this was a brilliant look at the limited options for a middle aged woman without family or funds in this time period. Despite the sadness, I loved this book and rooted for Judy Hearne with all of her faults.

A great find and highly recommended.

Original publication date: 1955
Author’s nationality: British/Northern Ireland (another one of these, correct me if I'm wrong!!)
Original language: English
Length: 223 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased nyrb
Why I read this: bought for a litsy group read ages ago and finally getting to it

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Other reviewers here have mentioned that "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" is an extremely sad book, and they're hardly wrong to say so. What I really enjoyed about this book, though, was that Judy -- though she herself might not appreciate our overly familiar tone -- is that she isn't merely

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the victim of a cold, unwelcoming world. Yes, the author portrays Belfast as a small, rather boring place riven by social divisions, and Ms. Hearne herself is the product of an idea of upper-class femininity that was, as of the fifties, was rapidly becoming outmoded. Her ladies' education hasn't gotten her too far in life. While forgoing marriage to take care of an ailing aunt turns out to be a disastrous choice, the author is understanding enough of his protagonist to make clear that there were few good options available to Judy's only close relation. Even so, Ms. Hearne herself has her faults. She's inherited the biases natural to her class and refused to examine them. She seems stuck in mental and emotional patterns that she's either unwilling or unable to break. She daydreams but refuses to act. You can call the characters in this novel who find her dull or faintly ridiculous unkind, but they're handly wrong. Judy, and her life, are terribly boring, and she doesn't really do enough to change it. Predictably enough, things end badly.

Mary Gordon suggests that "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" was written, as was much of the Irish literature of this period, under the star of Joyce, and while there is the stray free-flowing description here along with a few thematic similarities, I think that Moore's novel is really an altogether different sort of creature. His prose here is economical, almost cutting: a far cry from Jim's more lyrical moods. Lovers of period slang will enjoy returned Yankified returned Irishman James Madden's New York dialect, which is rendered so perfectly it often seems like he just stepped out of a film noir. His own truncated, spectacularly unsuccessful courtship of the titular character is, by way of closing, another one of this novel's principal attractions. Less a folie a deux than a dramatic mismatch of mercenary personal interests, it provides the perfect opportunity for the author to demonstrate what can happen when you remain trapped in your own badly calibrated perceptions. A rom-com in reverse, Judy and Jim's attempt at a love affair ends badly, too. It's not for the clinically depressed or the unshakably optimistic, but this one's a very good novel nonetheless.

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