BRIEFLY.

Byline: The Register-Guard

But Come Ye Back: A Novel in Stories

By Beth Lordan

(William Morrow, 278 pages, $23.95)

In the Celtic twilight of their years, Lyle and Mary Sullivan leave the United States and retire to Galway, Ireland, where she grew up, so she can be near her family after nearly 40 years away. It's her idea, not his:

"The sea would be near, and butter would have a taste to it, and she'd understand the weather; she'd get to know her brothers' wives, and her brothers, who had still been boys when she left. Lyle had no close family left in America; his father had been from Mayo (though he'd died before Lyle knew him, and Lyle had never made any great claim to Irishness, that foolishness of so many Americans about green beer and claddagh rings). She'd had no family at her wedding and had lived almost forty years far from home for his sake, and she wanted to grow old among her own people and be buried among them in a grave with flowers planted on it and curbing all around."

Mary's idyllic vision of their return to Ireland is quickly tempered by reality. Her loving husband is just as impatient and irascible as he's always been, maybe more so. Their grown sons have stayed in the states, her relationship with her sister is prickly. Romance has long gone from their life together, but not from their hearts.

Lyle is smitten by a younger American woman who is visiting Galway with her terminally ill husband, and Mary has romantic fantasies about a kind widower her own age who cheers her up in a crowded pub on a day when sadness had overwhelmed her. And at various times, they both remember vividly, poignantly and wistfully their early life together as sweethearts and young parents.

"But Come Ye Back" is all about the nuances of luck and love, as the young intensely feel it and older people steadfastly demonstrate it through long lives of intimacy, compromise and sacrifice. In its subtle exploration of mature love and passion, it calls to mind "A Season of Delight" by Joanne Greenberg.

Beth Lordan writes beautifully, with a keen sense of Irish speech, people and place and even keener insight into love, marriage and family. "Come Ye Back" is heartbreakingly sad, in many ways, but also hopeful:

"And so, heading back to America, Mary's sons began repeating their father's wobbly ride, hoping, as he had, to find love leaning on a gate, a story they had never heard, a story he would never tell."

- Paul Denison,

The Register-Guard

Everything Irish: The History,

Literature, Art, Music, People

and Places of Ireland from A-Z

Edited by Lelia Ruckenstein

and James O'Malley

(Ballatine, 461 pages, $29.95)

This would be a good book to tuck under your arm on your way to the pub, on the off chance that you might find someone there inclined to discuss or even argue about things Irish. From Abbey Theatre to Zozimus (nickname of a blind Dublin storyteller), this big book is chock full of interesting entries.

You can mine it systematically or randomly or by cross-referencing. For instance, a brief item about the Defenders, a 19th century Catholic secret society, will send you off to read about Armagh, the Protestant Peep O'Day Boys, Ulster, the Orange Order, the United Irishmen and the Rebellion of 1798, and you'll be all set to expound on cue. And if you can't tell a croagh from a crannog, this book will help you sort it out.

- Paul Denison,

The Register-Guard