Mothers and Sons (2007)

Whether the focus is on the mother or the son, most every story in Mothers and Sons, Colin Tóibín's Irish-inflected collection, is woven with the threads of devotion, obligation, practical self-interest, and naked emotional need that can tether even the most distant families together. In his shorter tales, those threads can dangle awkwardly. Only when Tóibín stretches out — a widow struggling to overcome the mountain of debt left by her late husband; a son desperately searching a snow-packed Spanish mountain for his missing mom — does he fully inhabit his characters, letting them breathe beyond the narrow roles prescribed by the title.

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