Mary, Tansey and the Journey into the Night

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Mary, Tansey and the Journey into the Night (English original title: A Greyhound of a Girl ) is a children's and youth novel by the Irish writer Roddy Doyle .

Four women are the protagonists of the story: 12-year-old Mary, her mother Scarlett, her grandmother Emer and her deceased great-grandmother Tansey. A special feature of the book is the narrative perspective that changes between the four women. However, Mary remains the main character, as the stories of the other women in her family are mostly looking back at the past. Since the book is aimed primarily at young readers, the subject of death is dealt with gently. The focus is therefore not on dying, but on life and what connects women from different generations. It is also about the different ways of dealing with a loss and saying goodbye to a loved one.

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Mary, 12, lives in Dublin with her parents and two older brothers . Her grandmother Emer, who is already over 80, is currently in the hospital. She doesn't lose her sense of humor there either, but falls asleep from one second to the next and that scares Mary, who loves her grandmother very much and doesn't want to lose.

One day Mary is approached by a strange woman who knows Mary's name and her grandmother Emer. At first Mary thinks the woman is a new neighbor, but when she mentions the name of the woman who has introduced herself as Tansey to her mother, she becomes curious and wants to meet Tansey. She tells Mary about the mother of Mary's sick grandma, who was also called Tansey and died of the flu in 1928 when Mary's grandma Emer was just three years old.

When Mary's mother Scarlett and Tansey meet, it turns out that Tansey is really Mary's great-grandmother - her great-grandmother's ghost. After her untimely death, she was so worried for her daughter that she was not ready to move on and stayed as a ghost to protect her daughter. Now she would like to accompany her daughter on her last big trip. During the night, the four women go on a trip to the old house in the country where both Tansey and Emer grew up. The old house is now in ruins and Mary realizes that changes are part of life and that the death of her grandmother is one of them.

Together they go to the sea, from which Emer wants to say goodbye and philosophize about death. Everyone knows that they are about to say goodbye and Tansey tries to take away the fear of it. She reminds them that they will always find each other and especially those who have already left in each other and also in their children and grandchildren. After this outing, Mary's grandma dies and Tansey also disappears, but Mary knows that part of her grandmother will stay with her forever.

Awards

  • 2013 “ Lynx of the Month” prize for children and young people in May from the weekly newspaper Die Zeit .

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