The Little Red Chairs
The Little Red Chairs book cover

The Little Red Chairs

Hardcover – March 29, 2016

by
Price
$11.99
Format
Hardcover
Pages
320
Publisher
Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0316378239
Dimensions
6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
Weight
1.15 pounds

Description

"A remarkable novel.... Extraordinary and unsettling."― James Wood, New Yorker "[An] extraordinary articulation of the lingering effects of trauma.... In the end, what leaves one in humbled awe of The Little Red Chairs is O'Brien's dexterity, her ability to shift without warning - like life - from romance to horror, from hamlet to hell, from war crimes tribunal to midsummer night's dream. And through it all, she embeds the most perplexing moral challenge ever conceived.... At a time when our best writers are such delightfully showy stylists, O'Brien...practices a darker, more subtle magic. Surprise and transformation lurk in even the smallest details, the most ordinary moments."― Ron Charles, Washington Post "Boldly imagined and harrowing.... Here, in addition to O'Brien's celebrated gifts of lyricism and mimetic precision, is a new, unsettling fabulist vision that suggests Kafka more than Joyce.... A work of meditation and penance."― Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times Book Review, "Editors' Choice" "O'Brien achieves a tone at once mythical and contemporary, archetypal and particularized, and does wonderful things with voice and tense.... The Little Red Chairs has much to recommend it: beautiful writing, immense ambition, a vivid cast of supporting characters, and a rigorous humanitarian ethos."― Priscilla Gilman, Boston Globe "The great Edna O'Brien has written her masterpiece."― Philip Roth "One of [O'Brien's] best and most ambitious novels yet. The Little Red Chairs is personal and political; charming and grotesque; a novel of manners and a novel of monsters.... O'Brien's undiminished gifts as a storyteller draw us in and then awaken us to the limits of our own blinkered vision, the fragility of our own safe havens."― Maureen Corrigan, NPR " The Little Red Chairs is a daring invention set at the bloody crossroads where worlds collide: savage, tender and true."― John Banville "Edna O'Brien is both brilliant and brave. This book astonished me."― Ann Patchett "Reading The Little Red Chairs reaffirms a belief I've held since I first read Ms. O'Brien's work: She is, quite simply, a master."― Kevin Powers "Edna O'Brien's The Little Red Chairs is a gem of a novel, a text to treasure."― Nuruddin Farah "A memorable work of art for our unsettled times.... [O'Brien's] prose is as lyrically arresting as ever, her vision as astute, and as delicate. The Little Red Chairs is notable for its interweaving of the near-mythical and the urgent present, and for its unflinching exploration of the complex and lasting effects of human brutality.... At once arduous and beautiful, The Little Red Chairs marries myth and fact in a new form that journeys, as we do now, from Cloonoila to The Hague, from fairyxadtale to contemporary agon ."― Claire Messud, Financial Times "Provocative, moving, masterly.... O'Brien has a way of hypnotizing the reader."― Fiona Wilson, Times (UK) "A spectacular piece of work, massive and ferocious and far-reaching.... Holding you in its clutches from first page to last, it dares to address some of the darkest moral questions of our times while never once losing sight of the sliver of humanity at their core.... It's impossible not to be knocked out by the sly perfection of O'Brien's prose."― Julie Myerson, Guardian, "Best Books of 2015" "O'Brien's writing in this rich, wrenching book can be both lyrical and hard-edged, which suits a world where pain shared or a tincture of kindness can help ease the passage from losses."― Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "O'Brien retains every element of her gorgeous writing [in] her new novel.... Dark fairy-tale threads give the story a magic-realism effect, but ultimately...the author's twenty fourth book is starkly realistic. O'Brien speaks to contemporary political violence in a suitably audible voice."― Brad Hooper, Booklist (starred review) "Slyly terrifying."― Vogue "Intoxicating.... O'Brien takes up her signature themes--close-knit communities, love and hate for the homeland, the plight of women, loss and desire, victimhood, romantic love--and casts their compassionate reach far beyond Ireland.... [ The Little Red Chairs ] asks the kinds of questions only a novel could dare; like a great novel must, it leaves many of them unanswered."― Kseniya Melnik, O Magazine "A tour de force on the atrocities we humans commit and fall prey to, as well as an exploration of suffering and the curative power of story."― Natalie Serber, San Francisco Chronicle "Brilliant"― Kate Mulgrew "Powerful.... With her inimitable storytelling genius, O'Brien explores the nature of evil."― Jane Ciabattari, BBC "This 18th novel from O'Brien delivers noble truths as well as atrocities.... [Her] mastery of symbolism and natural description remain unmatched in modern fiction."― John G. Matthews, Library Journal (starred review) "[This] may be the fiercest work of [O'Brien's] estimable career."― Robert Weibezahl, BookPage "O'Brien captures an extraordinary and almost holy innerness in each of her characters, however minor, and then plants those characters amidst the terrible velocity, the terrible pull of world events. O'Brien is truly at her best when she describes the private corners of minds, those quiet and wild corners, our meditative and our inspired selves, the self that Virginia Woolf called 'a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others.'"― Annalisa Quinn, NPR "One of those cases where the tidal wave of hype is justified.... A book you are a bit better for having read, and how many novels can you say that about anymore?"― Alex Balk, Awl "A tense page turner and a timely one."― Billy Heller, New York Post "A capacious novel full of exquisitely rendered miniatures.... O'Brien has long been recognized as a gifted short story writer and here she employs her gift for closely observed moments in the service of a novel that is deeply intimate but global in its vision."― Tom Beer, Newsday "O'Brien is a masterful stylist, and her descriptions of the natural world, especially the countryside around Cloonoila, are striking in their precision and beauty."― Norah Piehl, Bookreporter "Engrossing, beautifully written, and offers the reader much to think about.... O'Brien is a superb storyteller."― Corinna Lothar, Washington Times "O'Brien has done more than many governments by giving voice to the dispossessed in this novel of remembrance."― Susan Balee, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Unashamedly rich and thrilling to read.... It's breathtaking, a fusion of joy, loss and brutality."― Ron Rosenbaum, Smithsonian Magazine "A brilliant pastiche of voices, tenses, perspectives."― Catherine Holmes, Post and Courier "It's hard to believe that an 85-year-old can still write books big in size and scope with such vitality, grace and precision, but that's exactly what O'Brien does..... [She] has created characters so multifaceted and vivid that they don't become stereotypical as this masterwork evolves from love story into engaging political novel about real-world tyrants." ― Joseph Peschel, Raleigh News and Observer Edna O'Brien is the author of The Country Girls trilogy, The Light of Evening , The Love Object , and many other acclaimed books. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, O'Brien has lived in London for many years.

Features & Highlights

  • A fiercely beautiful novel about one woman's struggle to reclaim a life shattered by betrayal from the 2018 winner of the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.
  • One night, in the dead of winter, a mysterious stranger arrives in the small Irish town of Cloonoila. Broodingly handsome, worldly, and charismatic, Dr. Vladimir Dragan is a poet, a self-proclaimed holistic healer, and a welcome disruption to the monotony of village life. Before long, the beautiful black-haired Fidelma McBride falls under his spell and, defying the shackles of wedlock and convention, turns to him to cure her of her deepest pains. Then, one morning, the illusion is abruptly shattered. While en route to pay tribute at Yeats's grave, Dr. Vlad is arrested and revealed to be a notorious war criminal and mass murderer. The Cloonoila community is devastated by this revelation, and no one more than Fidelma, who is made to pay for her deviance and desire. In disgrace and utterly alone, she embarks on a journey that will bring both profound hardship and, ultimately, the prospect of redemption. Moving from Ireland to London and then to The Hague,
  • The Little Red Chairs
  • is Edna O'Brien's first novel in ten years -- a vivid and unflinching exploration of humanity's capacity for evil and artifice as well as the bravest kind of love.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
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(1.2K)
★★★★
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(778)
★★★
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(584)
★★
7%
(272)
★
28%
(1.1K)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Not among her best

I did not enjoy this novel as much as I'd hoped. I loved "House of Splendid Isolation," an earlier O-Brien novel with a terrorist lead character. This novel seemed more thought than felt, it seemed to me. I enjoyed the descriptions of the people and life in Cloonoila that appeared early in the novel, but did not find many of the characters believable or compelling. I hesitate to say this, because I often enjoy and admire O'Brien's work, but I found many of the plot points contrived. The character of Vlad is based very closely on the character and life of Radovan Karadzic, a Bosnian Serb politician, poet, psychologist, and murderer.

I can certainly understand why O'Brien would want to write about Karadzic -- he's quite a puzzle. And perhaps O'Brien really does get his character right -- empty, shallow, and self-ish. I guess he'd have to be those things to do what he did do. And she's certainly right that the hair would have attracted a lot of women. But the character is a man with a hollow center and its hard to be interested in any of the scenes he's in because of that. And readers -- BIG SPOILER ALERT -- I found the rape scene taken graphically straight out of New Delhi circa 2012 -- remember the bus and how the young woman was raped? I really, really wish that O'Brien had not borrowed that type of rape for the main female character in this novel. To me it kind of cheapened what happen to the young Indian woman in 2012 and that was awful and brutal indeed. The whole scene leading up to it and after seemed contrived to me.

ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT! I also find the scene wherein Jack dies as soon as Fidelma returns not quite believable.

There was one scene I really did like, apart from the slow, leisurely introduction to Cloonoila and that was the one in which Sister Bonaventure goes to visit Vlad the healer.

Overall, though, I didn't enjoy or get much out of this novel. This was not, to me, O'Brien at her best. Clearly many readers differ, however, and really, I am glad. If you like O'Brien's work and/or the story interests you, give it a try and see for yourself.
31 people found this helpful
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Powerful, memorable, astonishing

The title refers to a memorial event in Sarajevo on April 6, 2012, marking the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serbs. 11,541 red chairs -- one for each Sarajevan killed during the nearly four years of the siege -- were arranged in rows for a half mile down Titova Street, the high street of the city. 643 of the chairs were smaller, representing the 643 children killed during the siege.

In part, but only in part, Edna O'Brien's astonishing novel THE LITTLE RED CHAIRS is about the violence and evil unleashed in Bosnia by the Serbs. A major character is Vladimir Dragan, who is the slightly altered fictional counterpart of Radovan Karadžić, the "Butcher of Bosnia", who hid out for twelve years before being arrested in 2008 and tried for war crimes. In O'Brien's novel, a man calling himself Dr. Vladimir Dragan shows up in the bucolic country town of Cloonoila in western Ireland. Dragan says he is from Montenegro and he advertises himself as a "healer and sex therapist". He displays crystals, recites poetry and incantations, and performs healing massages. He charms nearly everyone he encounters, especially females -- and one in particular, Fidelma, the draper's wife. As the novel proceeds -- careening from event to event, almost-but-not-quite-out-of-control like a toboggan down an icy chute -- Dragan is captured and eventually brought to trial in The Hague. All the while Dragan steadfastly maintains his innocence and tries to manipulate everyone he meets. He truly is satanic. (As a fictional personification of evil, Vladimir Dragan reminds me of Judge Holden in Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West".)

The central character of the novel, however, is Fidelma. And the most prominent theme, in the end, is not the violence and evil of Dr. Dragan and the Bosnian civil war, but rather "an ordinary woman" in a world that revolves primarily around the principles and desires of men -- a theme that, based on my rather limited experience of reading her, seems central to O'Brien's fiction. Fidelma is married to Jack, who is twenty years older. Jack first saw Fidelma "in an orchard, a young girl just ripening, with a crop of black hair and the whitest skin". She was inordinately shy, and she aspired to be a poet. She settled for marriage to an older man who turns out to be a loner and for running a women's clothing boutique that goes belly-up after construction of the new highway that bypasses Cloonoila. She realizes that she wants a child, and so she is drawn to the mystery and seductions of Dr. Vladimir Dragan. She becomes pregnant. That is when she falls through the rabbit hole. The worst thing that happens to her is when she is kidnapped by three Bosnian survivors of Dragan's violence -- in a hideously harrowing scene they do unto her what Dragan had done unto them and theirs. Broken and disgraced and thoroughly alienated from Jack, Fidelma goes to London and lives among other refugees (human flotsam and jetsam) from around the world, working at various subsistence jobs such as cleaning office buildings and the cages of a dog kennel. Towards the end of the novel, she attends the final arguments of Dragan's trial in The Hague and even manages a profoundly unsatisfactory meeting with him.

Yet another theme of THE LITTLE RED CHAIRS is globalization. It is particularly evident in the part of the novel set in London, where Fidelma mixes with refugees from Sierra Leone (Jasmeen gives her a bed in her apartment for many weeks), Mozambique (Bluey runs an employment service and sends Fidelma off on two of her jobs), Senegal (Oghowen endured a clitorectomy as a girl), Zimbabwe, Argentina, and, poignantly, Bosnia. But the tides of globalization have even reached the backwater of Cloonoila in western Ireland. The staff at the Castle, a luxury hotel and restaurant, includes Burmese, Italians, Spaniards, Czechs, Lithuanians, Slovakians, and Poles. There is even Mujo, short for Muhammad, who is from Bosnia; he is a busboy at the hotel, and at a posh dinner where Dr. Dragan is one of the guests Mujo sees and recognizes him for who he was in the past, leading to Dragan's unmasking.

O'Brien's narrative technique is quite impressive, as is her confidence in that technique. She dispenses with many of the common setting-the-stage devices, and as a result the novel bursts with energy and forward propulsion. There are dozens of characters, many limned with just a few words. THE LITTLE RED CHAIRS is sprawling and rather untidy. But more importantly, it is powerful and memorable. Not the least astonishing thing about it is that it was published when Edna O'Brien was eighty-five.
8 people found this helpful
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A Fascinating, Disturbing Thriller:

This book begins in a small Irish village, rendered in the beautiful, spare prose and intimacy that has made O'Brien a beloved writer. The main character, a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, falls for an enigmatic man who is new to town.This much is very familiar Edna O'Brien terrain. This newcomer is expertly portrayed by O'Brien, and we see the warning signs behind his charisma and sex appeal. The discovery that this man is a war criminal sends the protagonist on a tumultuous journey through immigrant communities, with a long stay in the Hague. It is disturbing and fascinating. There is some graphic violence, but you can see it coming, and I skipped over it and did not read it. Her characters were very vivid, so much so that I found myself missing one kind man named James who comes along as a blessing on a merciless path, but is then left behind, too soon for me.
8 people found this helpful
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Torture To Read

This book was picked for our book club and I therefore felt compelled to finish it. Let me say, I love books - of all types, fiction, non fiction, mystery, classics, novels. This book I abhorred. Disjointed, preachy, rambling, affected. I can only surmise that Ms. O'Brien intended to bring home the torture of the Bosnian war by torturing her readers. If so, she succeeded.
7 people found this helpful
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NOPE

Got to maybe page 100 and it still hadn't grabbed my attention. I put it down because my reading time is precious to me and didn't want to waste it.
5 people found this helpful
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A Disappointment

This is my first time reading Edna O'Brien, and I was looking forward to it, especially given the novel's historical backdrop. Unfortunately, I could not finish it. I found the writing jarring. At times, it felt as though I were reading a plot summary or research notes. There's also an aloofness to the prose that keeps the reader at a distance so you never really connect with the characters or fall into the story. I guess I was expecting a reading experience akin to what Anthony Marra was able to achieve in A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA or other writers who are able to put a human face behind historical events (see also Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). So many people revere O'Brien but, sadly, this particular book doesn't truly deliver.
5 people found this helpful
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Difficult, but worth the read!

The Little Red Chairs, Edna O’Brien, author; Juliet Stevenson, narrator
In March, of 2016, Radovan Karadzik was sentenced to 40 years in prison for crimes against humanity by the United Nations Court in The Hague. He led the siege of Sarajevo, beginning in 1992 and continuing until 1995, in which thousands of Sarajevans were slaughtered by the Serbs. Karadzik, sometimes called the Butcher of Bosnia, is the very real person O’Brien has based her novel upon. Eluding capture for more than a decade, one of his alias identities was Dr. David Dragan. O’Brien makes use of that last name in her novel. In April of 2012, on the 20th anniversary of the siege of Sarajevo, thousands of empty chairs were laid out in the streets to commemorate the Sarajevan lives that were lost. The book takes its title from that event.
The author has placed Karadzik in the person of a character named Dr. Vladimir Dragan, also known as Vuk, which means wolf and is a fearsome name. The novel is an account of the time in which he supposedly eluded arrest in the fictional town of Cloonoila, in Ireland. Disguised as a healer and sex therapist, sometimes playfully called Dr. Vlad, he was intelligent, understood human nature and was quite likeable. He carried about him an air of mystery and mysticism and exhibited an unusual knowledge of many things, like the qualities of certain plants and vegetables to benefit health and a knowledge of psychiatry which helped him analyze the needs of the people. His beautiful head of white hair and his full beard, coupled with his soft-spoken presence, made him attractive to the women. One woman, Fidelma, was especially drawn to him. She confided to him, in one of their conversations, that she dearly wanted a child. The story of their relationship and its aftermath was a difficult part of the story to read, but it is used to explain, graphically, how violent and brutal the war experience was for the ordinary citizens of Sarajevo.
Myths and legends and poetry embellish the tale. Although it takes place in the present time, there is a feeling of the past pervading the story and the location of the events is often hazy. It took me awhile to figure out that part of it was in Ireland and part in England. Perhaps it was because of the allusions to Dracula and Transylvania, and a bit of the occult, that I was distracted and believed it was taking place in European countries with a more fabled history.
I found the story interesting mostly in its lyrical and descriptive presentation which was sometimes mesmerizing, owing also to the exceptional narration on the audio by Juliet Stevenson. I felt as if I was in the actual countryside observing the scenes. From some scenes, I actually wanted to avert my eyes. It was through the experiences related by many of the witnesses and victims, as they exposed the violence and brutality that had been inflicted upon them and their families during the siege, that the story truly plays out and Dragan’s (Karadzik’s) arrogant and cruel personality is imagined and presented.
At times, the number of characters was overwhelming, and at other times, the story did not knit as well together as possible, leaving odd threads hanging about, making it a bit disjointed. Still, it prompted me to do research on the beast in the book, and for that the author deserves much credit. Shining a light on a piece of history that is not known well enough is a worthy effort, even if it is in fictional form. When it is based on a true historic event which touched so many thousands of people, it deserves attention.
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Red, as in Scarlet, Enraging, Bloody, Ireland

You live in a quaint, if a little busybody, Irish hamlet, a beauty swept off her feet by a much older man, marrying in your well-earned white dress. 15, 20 years pass, your life is humdrum, sort of nice with your much older husband but your clock is ticking and his dock ain't kicking.

A very distinguished, intriguing, attractive foreign (perhaps Russian) doctor/chiropractor in his early 40s moves into town, renting a room near your art shop. He subtly suggests that you look like you need a lover. Your biological clock starts to wind in the corner of your mind, and you seek a child with this man, a child your husband cannot give you.

Weeks/months pass by and you become pregnant despite knowing now of a few negative character traits. One day government agents blow into this little village to make a highly publicized arrest of the most wanted Serbian war criminal (think, Milosevic, Karadzic).

PapaDaddy is, as it turns out, the Prince of Darkness, Beëlzebub in the body, Father of Lies in the flesh, Author of Evil, the Old Serpent.

The novel blasts with double-barrels, driven by morally difficult questions and, to my mind, unloading on some leaders in the Catholic Church as, at best, judgmental and indifferent to humanity and not at all worthy of reflecting the Redeemer, or, worse, complicit in abetting such a monstrous castigation that even Lucifer would have to look away. Ms. O'Brien has never shied away from criticizing or offending the Catholic Church of her Ireland.

Warning: this book contains one of the most diabolical and horrendous acts of sexual violence against a female in all literature, at least that I've read.
3 people found this helpful
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Bye bye Edna.

I think this effort has sunk my interest in Edna O'Brien. I was very enthusiastic about her when I read the first 150 pages of Wild Decembers. But then things turned dark and predictable. It's the same here. Rich at the beginning, darkening as it went along, and predictable, Fidelma's story taking over from Vlad's, and then a lot of characters and stories and spiritual silliness appear until I reverted to skipping around. It's all rather sad and bleak and hopeless. A hopeless love affair between a sweet woman and a psychopathic split-personality monster. Oy vez. Get me outta here! Because the writing is always surprising and Edna is a master, I gave this three stars, but would I recommend it? Nope.
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A Compelling Story of Innocence, Evil and Human Goodness

Edna O'Brien, a renowned Irish writer, is one of the finest living authors of the English language. The Little Red Chairs refers to the memorial dedicated in 2012 to the memory of those killed in the siege of Sarajevo, including 643 children. The novel references a true life Serbian leader who masterminded the atrocities on the Bosnian minorities. But the novel is not about the war, but about the impact of evil upon innocent lives including a remarkable woman who seeks to redeem her damaged life. The story which takes place primarily in Ireland initially and then in London is told through the eyes of numerous people. The story is riveting, suspenseful, and tragic. I had been hesitant to read this book initially despite its strong positive reviews, because of the notoriety of the Serbian/Bosnian war and the inclusion of a horrifically violent scene. But the writing is beautiful and the story crafted by a master. I couldn't put it down and I didn't want it to end!
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