Maurice Hannigan is an Irish farmer, land-owner and more. He is in his 80’s and we find him at a hotel bar raising a glass or five as he recalls his life. Settle in with your favourite tipple as you join Maurice and listen to him toasting five folk who mean so much to him. He is speaking to Kevin as he leads us through memorable times in his life – the hardship, the regrets, the sadness and the joy – Maurice’s honesty is refreshing and his story will be one you won’t want to leave.

Anne Griffin has written a wonderfully interesting, heart-wrenching and charming book. Beautifully written it will capture and hold you enthralled until the very end. Don’t be surprised if you shed a tear or two you’ll also cheer, grimace and laugh alongside this old curmudgeon with a heart. Maurice is a great character, believable and whose story is well worth reading. As readers what an opportunity to be given such an insight into Maurice’s life, thoughts and feelings.

I would certainly recommend this book to anyone and believe it will appeal to all.

With thanks to Sceptre via NetGalley for an eCopy of When All is Said by Anne Griffin. All thoughts are my own, I have not received any payment for the review of this book.

Great first novel.I thoroughly enjoyed.
Maurice was a farmer who after the death of his wife sells his farm land.He has decided to move into a home,or has he?
Before he moves he sits in a local hotel and has five drinks to toast people in his life that have meant something.
The story goes into detail about each person he remembers.
I found this book quite compulsive as I was very interested in his life and read it quickly to see what would happen.
Look forward to Anne's next book.

Maurice Hannigan is toasting five people who made the biggest impact on his life - and left him behind. Five people, five drinks, five stories. But in the centre of the book is Maurice himself - we meet him in various stages of his life, as a son, husband, brother, an unscrupulous businessman, a mean and difficult person, but also an old man deeply suffering after losing his beloved wife. He is a great character, flawed but likeable and although the story is very sad in places, there is also humour and affection.,

This story is staged in five acts, each of them interluded with a break. My main problem with the book was its unevenness - it was slightly too long in places, and despite the beautiful, flowing prose I struggled to stay connected at all times. I loved the first part and the last one, the rest was less engaging. Having said that, Maurice's life story was a fascinating and gripping story.

When All Is Said boasts impressive plugs from respectable writers: Donal Ryan and Graham Norton are just two of them. And they're right - this is an astonishing book.

We meet Maurice Hannigan, a successful businessman, 84 years old and nearing the end of his time, reminiscing about the five people who affected him most in his life. He sits in his local hotel, downing drinks at the bar and uses each drink to toast one of those individuals. His rambling and conversational narrative is apparently for the benefit of Kevin, his son across the water in New York.

Hannigan's story is one of rags to riches. After an unsuccessful attempt at school, he started his working life as a hand on the Dollards' estate. Seventy years later, through shrewd buying and selling, he owns that estate. It would have been easy to write a thrilling account of the wheeling and dealing that brought him that success, but instead the novel is one of people and relationships. We see how those relationships both changed events, and were changed by them. The underlying stories are personal, and mostly stories of regret. In particular, we see how events were affected by the toss of a coin, the ripples still being felt so many decades later. We see how much Hannigan loved Sadie, his late wife, yet neglected her and treated her badly. We see Hannigan conflicted by his hatred of the Dollards but his compassion for individuals. We see how he wrestles with his conscience - and often ends up victorious.

This is a deep, complex life story that exposes itself subtly, layer on layer. That the reader can be made to feel any sympathy at all for an Irish property dealer is a feat - to get the reader so deep into his psyche is almost miraculous.

This really is a fantastic book that works on so many levels. It is sad, very sad, but also very human and narrated with a voice that is not self-pitying.

Highly recommended.

What a beautifully written memorable tale, told in the form of a letter to his son, by 84 year old Maurice Hannigan. The love, loss, and longing, but most of all love, is palpable in this story, as Maurice describes his harsh, poverty stricken upbringing, where he and his family suffer the mercilesslness of their masters at the ‘big house’, the Hannigans being the lowly servants of these people.
Maurice’s ‘rags to riches’ story is admirable, but fired as it is by his relentless quest for revenge against his erstwhile masters and their family, it is much less admirable, though perhaps justifiable. As Maurice recounts his life story, the reader realise that he himself has come to understand that his behaviour towards certain members of this family have been questionable, and Maurice recognises that he has some regrets about some of the decisions he has made over the years. In his own way, and secretly, he has tried to make amends to the innocent descendants of his old adversaries, with varying success.
Maurice’s story describes the extreme and long lasting grief felt by himself and his mother, during the illness, decline and early death of his adored older brother Tony.
Then as he continues with his five toasts to the important people in his life, the story culminates in the toast to his wife, and the all-consuming loss, grief and loneliness he feels after her death.
Having put all his affairs in order, Maurice is determined to take the final step, the only one he feels is left for him. His description of the desperate loneliness, and aloneness in the world, is heartbreaking. The recounting if his last actions, including the voice recording to his much loved son, is unbearably poignant and sad.
But this is ultimately a story of love, and the power of love. Though sad in parts, it is not depressing, rather it is life affirming, told with a good measure of warm Irish wit and humour. I smiled, I laughed, and I cried, and I could not put this book down. It will stay with me long after others have faded.
I recommend this book, and I thank Netgalley and the publisher for my advance copy. What a talented storyteller is Anne Griffin.

Oh, I just loved this. Great story-telling, secrets and a slightly unusual plot. What more can you ask?

Pull up a chair, and make yourself cosy for a weekend with Maurice and his family. It's not just your usual poor boy in Ireland...Maurice has a grand story to tell.

Highly recommended.

An absolute gem of a book. The most beautifully written story I have read in some time. Narrated perfectly by 84 year old Maurice, the concept which had the potential to be twee was anything but, just an honest account of an old man's life and those that helped shape it. Amazing!

When All is Said is a thought provoking book illustrating how words unspoken can result in deep regret and unhappiness. It's a story of love, loss and overwhelming grief. I really liked the format of a father speaking to his son and, within the contents of the narrative, reminiscing about people and events from the past. This aspect of the book was very effective and cleverly done.

While I enjoyed the writing very much, I'd have liked a little more positivity and was disappointed that the ending was as I expected but not what I'd hoped for. I'd definitely read more by Anne Griffen.

Maurice Hannigan sits in the bar in his home town and toast the five people that have been important in his life. As he sits alone in the bar in Ireland he talks in his head to his son who lives in America explaining why these people were instrumental in his life.

He is booked in as a VIP in the honeymoon suite and during the evening he tells his story which is full of highs and lows during which he pours out his love that he has never really shown to the world.
This book made me laugh and cry and is a great read.

Insightful and moving, this book steers us through the memories of 84-year old Maurice and his life as a farmer in Ireland from just before the Second World War into the present day.
We meet Maurice in a hotel bar where he holds 5 toasts for the 5 people who were most instrumental and beloved in his life.
Beautifully written, his voice is authentic as he meanders through his past - a highly enjoyable read, heartbreaking at times, eye-opening and simply wonderful!

When All Is Said
By Anne Griffin

Blurb
I’m here to remember – all that I have been and all that I will never be again.’

At the bar of a grand hotel in a small Irish town sits 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan. He’s alone, as usual – though tonight is anything but. Pull up a stool and charge your glass, because Maurice is finally ready to tell his story.

Over the course of this evening, he will raise five toasts to the five people who have meant the most to him. Through these stories – of unspoken joy and regret, a secret tragedy kept hidden, a fierce love that never found its voice – the life of one man will be powerfully and poignantly laid bare.

Heart-breaking and heart-warming all at once, the voice of Maurice Hannigan will stay with you long after all is said.

Our Review
Anne Griffin has written a wonderful debut novel that is sure to win her many fans. When All is Said is a unique treasure of a book and one that is definitely going to make it on to my list of favourite novels of 2019.

There are few surprises in this book it is just a simple story told in conversational style, a man explaining a decision to his absent son.

Maurice Hannigan is sat alone in a hotel bar when the tale begins. Over the course of the evening he toasts five people who have had a significant impact on his life and will have an impact on the reader during the course of their reading: his brother Tony, his sister-in-law, his daughter Molly, his son Kevin and his late wife Sadie.

When All is Said is a poignant story of love and loss, feuds and revenge, and regrets. Each element of the story builds an unforgettable tale.

Maurice is not a one-dimensional character, there are things you will love about him and also plenty of things to dislike, but each one adds up to a character with a unique voice. Each of the people mentioned in his toasts contribute to this loveable rogue of a character and those he has lost along the way will have a profound impact on the reader.

Often when I read a book the voice I read it in is my own but in this case the voice in which I read had a very distinctive Irish accent. One of the strongest features of When All is Said is the clear picture it creates of the traditional features associated with Ireland.

The novel begins with a classified add for a rare coin with the person who placed it being willing to pay any amount for it. It then goes on to Maurice sat in the hotel bar contemplating his life and the changes in him as a physically and emotionally over the years.

“there’s me now in the corner, like the ‘feckin eejit who wouldn’t get his head out of shot. And what a head it is. It’s not often I look in the mirror these days. When your mother was alive I suppose I made a bit of an effort but sure what difference does it make now? I find it hard to look at myself. Can’t bear to see it- that edge, you know the one I mean – haven’t you been on the receiving end of it enough over the years.”

Before we are very far along into the story it becomes clear that all isn’t right with our seemingly jovial narrator. This is a man very much in the throws of grief, a man who has had a lot of experiences of bereavement in his life, but the loss of his wife is one he is unable to bear. There are very clear signs that he is contemplating ending his life such as selling the farm he has lived on all his life and giving away his dog to a family who don’t live locally and won’t ask questions.

When he gives away the dog, he almost changes his mind at the last minute but forces himself not to.

“Instead I kept on moving, mumbling away trying to block out the weight of another ending, another loss in this worn-out life of mine.”

One of the most poignant losses Maurice has faced is the loss of his brother and best friend Tony when he was still a young boy, a loss he has felt more keenly since his wife died two years previously.

“It’s his living presence I’ve missed the most since your mother left. And no amount of talking to him in my head can take the place of being able to see the man, to touch the skin and bone of him, to hear the him sup a pint in Hartigan’s. What I wouldn’t give for just one hour of his company. No need for much conversation at all. Our elbows at the counter. A bottle of stout each in front of us. Half empty glasses. Looking out at the town. Tapping our feet to the music and not having to pretend all is fine. Being allowed to be a feckin mess. The feeling of his pat on my back as he passes behind me to the john. Is it too much to ask for a simple resurrection?”

The above is one of many passages in which Anne Griffin ably demonstrates the secondary losses often felt and left unacknowledged when someone is grieving. This is just one of many reasons why I adored When All is Said.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this intriguing book...and what a book...one that will grab you and make you read to the end...its not a violent book or horror but one about a mans life and 5 people wants to raise a glass to before the end of his life...

a compelling read that will keep you reading till the end, maurice is sat in the bar with a drink in front of him as he reminiscences about 5 people that were important to him during his lifetime, i found the bit about his dog upsetting as its one i can imagine many who have to give away a dog before you are ready...

loved how the author wrote and i felt it flowed really well and will be keeping an eye out for more of this authors works

Widower Maurice sits at a bar in Ireland, raising toasts to the most important people in his life, from the brother who died so many years ago, to his late wife. His joys, tragedies and regrets are laid bare. A warm, powerful tale that’s hugely enjoyable to read. You’ll miss Maurice’s humour, straight-talking and honesty when you reach the end.

This book appealed to me from the start promising a story of an 84 year old Maurice Hannigan, who, over the course of a Saturday night in June, orders five different drinks at the Rainford House Hotel in Ireland. With each drink, he toasts a person vital to him and who made an impact and through these people, he tells the story of his own life, with all its regrets and feuds, loves and triumphs. 'A tale of a single night. The story of a lifetime.'
This was a unique and compelling book that had me eagerly turning the pages until the end, I felt like I knew Maurice by the end and was sad to loose a friend. A very emotional book that I would definitely recommend. I would definitely read more by this talented author again.

Maurice Hannigan is 84-year-olds and raising a toast to some of the most important people in his life. From his brother to his son, Hannigan tells the story of his life during five different drinks, and eventually will come to rest on the reason he's decided to finally share his stories by the end of the night.

This book is very much sitting beside a lonely old man in a country pub and accidentally becoming the ear for all of his tongue wagging. At first, you're a bit disgruntled as you'd rather just enjoy your pint rather than have to listen to him but eventually, before you know i,t, you're completely invested in his story and you want to know how everything ends (imagine as well, the people sitting at Forrest Gump's bus stop).

Maurice was a character I had to warm up to. At first I did find him a grumpy, slightly selfish oul sod but the more I read, I could see the good parts of him as well - how much he loved and cherished his wife, and how he behaved with Noreen. I do think the storyline around the gold coin was a bit of a non-story, and one that seemed to take a way a bit from the main storyline of Maurice's life tales. I honestly didn't care about the coin and the ending result of it all was disappointing and an anti-climax to say the least.

I did end up enjoying this story though, and people like a good chinwag then you may just enjoy Maurice's voice.

A beautiful debut, I fell in love with both the characters and the story. I cried (a few times) and laughed, lots. It felt almost like coming home. I didn’t want it to end, so purposefully put it down, but couldn’t resist picking it back up. I loved the rich language coming through the main characters, as well as the colloquialisms, which I remember from my youth. Having an Irish father and travelling back to the West of Ireland every two years will do that to you.
Loved the book, read it, enjoy it, marvel in it. Enjoy its simple beauty, it is a rare find.
#netgalley #whenallissaid

What a wonderful book, there are no tricks, no fancy literary craft just a beautiful monologue from Maurice Hannigan looking back over his life. It is full of emotion - love and sadness in almost equal amounts as Maurice makes a toast to the five people who have shaped his life. The characterisation of Maurice, in particular, is so well done you can visualise him sat at the bar. I wonder who my five would be? I would probably need more than 5. This is a really gentle but emotionally large narrative.

84 year old Maurice has had enough of life as he knows it and so decides to do something about it.
Before his final act he goes to a hotel bar and toasts the lives of five people who changed his life and made him the man he is today.
Heartwarming read.

A beautifully written, sometimes heart-breaking novel. The elderly narrator looks back at his life and raises five toasts to the five people who have meant the most to him over his lifetime. The result is a thought-provoking and moving story of love and loss, family and relationships. Haunting.

I loved this book, my favourite read of the year! I read the whole book in one sitting, I just couldn’t put it down!
I was there , with Maurice, throughout.
The characters were so well written and rounded.
I look forward to Anne Griffin’s nest book