Nora Webster

Donal Webster is Nora’s teenage son. Like his mother, he is grieving the death of his father and struggles to express his suffering. Of Nora’s four children, Donal is the most profoundly affected by his father’s death. Nora notes that Donal would carefully memorize his father’s schedule so that he would always know where Maurice was. Now, this significant part of Donal’s life has become a painful void, and the same emotional vulnerability that attuned him to his surroundings means that Donal has no real way to cope with the sudden loss of his father. His life is further disrupted because his mother’s detachment makes him feel as though he has lost two parents. While Conor is too young to fully understand what is happening and Aine and Fiona are mature enough to focus on their studies, Donal turns to his mother for support, only to find that Nora is just as alienated and devastated as he is. Nora focuses on Donal because they have so much in common, but their very commonality renders them ill-suited to support one another. 

Much like Nora, Donal learns how to heal by learning how to express himself. The issue of self-expression is particularly pronounced in Donal, who develops a stammer in the wake of his father’s death and is physically unable to fully articulate his thoughts. In his most emotionally intense moments, Donal cannot communicate his feelings at all, and he sometimes simply gives up and retreats into silence. Thus, the silent art of photography becomes his chosen form of expression. He decides early on that he does not want to photograph people; he feels alienated from society and has no interest in creating portraits or commodifying his art. Instead, he prefers to photograph distant events, such as the Moon landing or the Troubles as shown on the television screen. By photographing these images, Donal gains a layer of separation from his subjects; he is essentially taking pictures of pictures and expressing his alienation from his own life by emphasizing his distance from world events. He may lack the vocabulary to document his complex emotions, but with photography, he does not need words; his stammer does not interfere with his camera lens. 

Photography allows Donal to better understand himself, and he finally regains agency and expression when he tells his mother that he cannot continue in the same school because his memories of Maurice are too painful. To him, the school represents his father. He also feels the judgement and pity of the people at the school, just as Nora does in the community. When Donal makes this confession in a moment of frank and painful honesty, she agrees to send him to a boarding school, an important step in his healing process. However, this important step requires an adjustment period, and both Donal and Nora quietly accept that their pain is an essential part of their growth. As Donal physically changes over the course of the novel, his emerging adolescence becomes an outward illustration of his inner maturation, and he ultimately accepts the difficulties of his present as he moves toward a better future and learns to live with his grief.

Laurie O’Keefe is something of an outsider in Nora’s small community and is commonly viewed as being strange and different. Even before Nora meets Laurie, she is aware of Laurie’s reputation, which has spread through the community along the same vectors of gossip and judgement that Nora simultaneously loathes and contributes to. As such, Nora is predisposed to empathize with someone who is separate from the highly restrictive community. 

While most of the people in Nora’s life have remained within the same parish boundaries all their lives, Laurie has a long and complex backstory. She was once a nun, but she left that life behind at the age of 50 to embark on something new. She refused to be confined by the parameters of her existence and chose instead to remake herself in later life—just as Nora must learn to do after Maurice’s death. Laurie was a nun in France during World War II. Because her church was under Nazi occupation, it is implied that Laurie has firsthand experiences of violence and conflict that are entirely alien to the residents of this small, rural community. For Laurie, music became more important than religion or trauma, and her method of using music to build a new life becomes a working model for Nora’s own inner growth.

Lauria’s love of music is very different from the sentiments of the Gramophone Society members. While they are very sincere in their love of music, Nora cannot help but feel a deep melancholy when reflecting upon their relationship to music. For example, although the Radfords’ house is filled with records, Nora feels as though they are simply using music to fill the silent void in their lives. Likewise, the members of the Gramophone Society are passive consumers of music, but Laurie O’Keefe is an active participant in music itself. This active, involved approach to music becomes very important for Nora, and Laurie’s influence proves to be instrumental in helping Nora to find her voice. During Nora’s singing lessons, Laurie teaches her breathing exercises, urges her to ponder the meaning of abstract art, and puts her in touch with her own body. 

Laurie is fiercely protective of Nora. Her nurturing manner is almost motherly: a distant echo of the maternal element that has Nora lost. For example, when Frank Redmond treats Nora rudely, Laurie drives to his house in a towering rage and puts the choirmaster in his place. She rejects the quiet judgement of the small rural community and favors direct confrontation and emotional release: a trait that Nora finds to be greatly cathartic. 

At the end of the novel, Laurie comes to the house and invites Nora to join her choir, which will be performing an anniversary show to celebrate the reconsecration of Laurie’s old church. This show resonates with Nora because it represents a celebration of renewal after suffering. The first person that Laurie asks to be in this choir is Nora. In this way, Laurie equips Nora with valuable tools to move beyond her grief, and Nora gains an essential form of catharsis by embracing music. Laurie is one of the most significant figures in Nora’s life, because she teaches Nora how to fit into society by showing her that happiness is not contingent upon conformity.