4.5 rounded to 5 stars

Gosh, I must have been under a rock for years ignorant of the high quality Irish fiction that I am gradually discovering. Maeve Binchy, Patricia Gibney, Tana French, John Boyne, and now newcomer Anne Griffin are some of the wonderful Irish authors I have been delighted to come across since joining Goodreads five years ago.

This book is shockingly a debut as a honey of a gem it is! It features Maurice, an 84-year-old Irish farmer, who has lost nearly everything and everyone he has dearly loved and feels he is at the end of his life. We join him over a few hours spent at the bar in an Irish hotel as he drinks a toast to the five most important people in his life. If you are looking for action, suspense, or adventure, move on to something else. This is a slow contemplative journey, one where the storyteller takes the time to stop and smell the roses (or less delightful odors) along the way.

Maurice is not a perfect man. He knows that better than anyone else, and he accepts it, as that is who he is. He admits his shortcomings and hopes he can be forgiven, but understands that will not always be the case. As he takes one last stroll through the highlights and lowlights of his life, he is addressing his son Kevin who is actually far far away in America. He reminisces about his joys, sorrows, successes, regrets, and moments of pride. Even on this night he finds a type of closure with a few final issues.

I felt I really got to know Maurice. Accompanying him on his final exploration of life was heartrending and an experience I won’t soon forget. Such a quiet novel, yet so profound. I look forward to whatever Ms. Griffin writes next. When All Is Said is highly recommended for everyone looking for a moving, meaningful read.

Thank you to Net Galley, St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books, and Ms. Anne Griffin for an advanced review copy. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

If you were going to toast five people who made the biggest difference in your life, who would you choose and why?

Maurice Hannigan, 84, sits alone at the bar of the Rainsford House Hotel reminiscing about his life. He has sorted and boxed up all his belongings, sold all his properties, and told Robert Timoney, his friend and lawyer, that he is moving to a nursing home to simplify his life. For this last night, he has checked himself into the honeymoon suite at the hotel, a suite his beloved wife, Sadie had thought spectacular. He had promised her they would stay there sometime, but time slipped away, and they never did. Sadie died in her sleep two years ago to this very day, and he hasn’t gotten over it. He lifts his glass for his first toast…

One must only read this book a short while before realizing that you are holding something very special in your hands. Griffin’s writing is so flowing, emotive and poetic that this reader was instantly transported to Ireland to the hotel bar where Maurice sits, feeling as if he is sharing his intimate memories, hopes, regrets, successes and failures with me, rather than, in his mind, with his son in America. It is a fascinating, powerful story, exceptionally well done.

Few books earn a five-star rating from me; this is one that I wish I could rate higher! I was stunned to learn that this is Anne Griffin’s debut novel. WOW!!! I am eagerly awaiting her next book. This is an author to watch!

Many, many thanks to NetGalley and Thomas Dunne Books for allowing me to read a copy of this amazing book in exchange for an unbiased review.

A subtly beautiful story that celebrates life, loss, and, most significantly, love.

“I’m here to remember -- all that I have been and all that I will never be again.”

One night in Meath, Ireland at a hotel 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan makes five toasts to five people. In doing so, he recounts those who have shaped his life in the most important ways. His tribute to these five individuals reveals his accomplishments, regrets, and unwavering love for his friends, family, and his wife, Sadie.

This is a lovely, touching read that is beautifully written. Maurice’s story is both understated and raw. I loved getting to know him and reading his truthful account of his life. He doesn’t sugarcoat or make excuses. He basks in the glory of his small victories. In Meath, he is known for his rich speaking voice, and as a reader, his voice drew me in with his ability to take a simple story and elevate it into something special. In Maurice, Griffin has created a character who is authentic, complex, and charming. I felt his emotions and heartbreak. My favorite toast was to his wife, Sadie. I was a bit shattered in the end, but at the same time, I understood that this was the right way to end Maurice’s story. Highly recommended! Warning: have tissues handy!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press in exchange for an honest review.

When All Is Said By Anne Griffin is a highly emotional read. It makes you wonder who the people in your own life makes the biggest difference? So many thing happen in ones life, some of just the small events can actually make the biggest changes. And the people you meet along the way all help shape you and your life. I read this book quite quickly, caught up in the lives of this family.

84 year old Maurice Hannigan has packed up his life and is ready to move on. He sits at the bar of a hotel in Ireland with a plan - 5 toasts to the 5 people that made the most impact on his life - His brother Tony, his daughter Molly, his sister in law Noreen, his son Kevin and his late wife Sadie. All people who meant a great deal to him and changed his life forever. Through these toasts we learn of Maurice's life from being a child, to meeting the love of his life. Life has not always been easy for him, but through his memories fond and those not so happy a life story is told and you can't help but get involved.

Thanks to St Martins Press and Netgalley for my advanced copy of this book to read. All opinions are my own and in no way biased

When All Is Said by Anne Griffin is a stunning debut novel, so poignant and beautiful that your heart will ache. I did not want this one to end.

Eighty-four year old Maurice Hannigan sits in a bar, raising a glass to the five people who have had the most profound influence in shaping and informing his life. Through the process of toasting each in turn, the events of Maurice's lifetime are laid bare, both good and bad. Maurice has suffered loss, heartbreak, and regret, but has also found his greatest love in wife Sadie.

Told as a confessional of sorts to son Kevin, Maurice acknowledges past wrongs and concedes that, on reflection, he could have done better by his son.

This is a touching and heartfelt story that is exquisitely lyrical and beautifully written. The character of Maurice Hannigan will stay with you long after leaving his company. I would highly recommend this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for this wonderful ARC.

I was absolutely FLOORED by this wee book. I won't rehash the plot but so well written! Pulled my heartstrings more than any book I have ever read. I wanted to hug everyone in this book..even the evil villains. You can bet I will be recommending this to book clubs, friends, relations and even enemies. BRILLIANT!

If you are a fan of A Man Called Ove, you will LOVE this book. I was so sad when it ended. Maurice Hannigan will stay with me for a long time. He is an 84 year old man who pops into an Irish bar and gives 5 toasts to the five people who have meant most to him in his life. Filled with love, loss, tragedy, and more moments that are powerful and poignant than you could imagine, this book will warn your heart. The writing is lyrical, beautiful, heartbreaking, and wonderful.

You definitely do NOT want to miss this one.
5 out of 5 stars for When All is Said by Anne Griffin.

This book goes beyond description - it's heartfelt, it's emotional. Maurice Hannigan is alone at the bar of the Rainford House Hotel. Over the course of the evening, he raises five glasses to different people as he tells the story of his life up that night. From his childhood to his marriage, we follow along on this story - with the foreboding sense of where it's going to end.

This is a great, great, great story. I'm not going to lie and say that I didn't sob many times.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Gosh this was a good book, still sniffing! Nicely woven story which takes place one evening is The Rainsforrth Hotel with memories supplying the back story. Really well done. All the characters were well portrayed, I loved Maurice who is telling his story, such a lovable, crotchety old man!

Highly recommend, I'm sure you'll enjoy also.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

I was given access to an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a beautiful book. At the outset, the reader finds himself in a pub seated next to Maurice, an 84-year-old man who has a story to tell. Actually, he has several. Newly widowed and desperately missing his wife, he needs someone to talk to. As the evening goes on, he will introduce you to some of the people in his life who have mattered the most.

This book is part A Man Called Ove and part The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It's beautiful and reflective. Anne Griffin has a gift for making her readers ache alongside Maurice for everything in the past that went wrong or just plain sideways.

There are few books that I think I'll ever read again. There are just too many that I haven't gotten to yet! But this one is fantastic. I will listen to Maurice tell me his tales as often as he wants me to.

I loved this book. It was one that stays with you mentally long after the last page is read. It is hard to believe it is a debut novel. Taking place in southern Ireland, our story centers around eighty-four year old Maurice Hannigan, a successful farmer widowed for two years, father of Kevin who is a journalist in California, as he spends a night in the local hotel pub, toasting the five most important people in his life.

The story is exquisite. The heart is right there, on page after page, and all you can do with it is read on. The people are fully characterized, all would be a boon companion for any one of us, and we understand exactly where they are coming from. This is a author to take seriously - I can't wait for her next tale.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Anne Griffin, and Thomas Dunne Books in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

I thought this book was written beautifully; however, it was not for me. I found the plot to be slow and had difficulty getting through this book. I could see how so many enjoy it though!

Oh man, this is a tough one. It is not often the case that I look at glowing reviews and think ‘did we read the same book?!’ but here we are… I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was going to love this, too! When All Is Said is a contemporary Irish novel about an old man named Maurice who’s looking back at his life and giving a toast to the five people who had the greatest influence on him, most of whom are already dead. So it’s a premise that promises nostalgia and regret and heartache, but I never really felt any of it.

My main issue with this book was Maurice’s first-person narration – I just wasn’t convinced by his voice. Forgive me, but you know how sometimes you read a female character and think ‘yep, a man wrote this book’ – I felt the opposite here. (Which is more of a gut feeling and probably a baseless one that’s impossible to quantify, so I’m just going to move on.) It’s established early on in this book that Maurice has dyslexia which led him to quit schooling at a very early age and develop a lifelong antipathy for literature; instead he fills his days with farming and various other business ventures. So while Maurice is clearly an intelligent man, and I have no qualms with that intelligence being on display, I’m not sure why Anne Griffin wanted us to believe he was a poetic one? Lines like this:

"But her story is like the wind under the front door, whistling its way through the crevices, getting through the cracks in my skin."

and this:

"There was a love but of the Irish kind, reserved and embarrassed by its own humanity."

pulled me out of the story again and again, because why would this 84 year old farmer use that simile, why would he have that sophisticated emotional vocabulary? I guess this goes hand in hand, but what also grated on me was the fact that we were essentially spoon-fed the ways in which the love and loss of these five characters shaped Maurice. Take this passage from the first chapter, where Maurice describes the death of his older brother Tony:

"It’s so hard to lose your best friend at any time, but to do so at such a young age was pure cruel. At sixteen I was heading into my life. Having travelled those precious years with Tony by my side, I now had to venture forth into the most significant of them alone. Without his guidance, his cajoling, his slagging. It didn’t feel possible."

It’s too articulate, it’s too on the nose. Funny that this is called ‘When All Is Said,’ because that was exactly my problem: nothing is left unsaid. There is no room for the reader to think or feel anything organically, because we are told exactly how we should think and feel about Maurice’s story. This was missing tension, nuance, thematic complexity. I’ll concede that Maurice is a well-constructed character, and that Anne Griffin makes a real effort to weave together moments of joy with moments of sorrow to paint a three-dimensional picture of this character’s life, I just felt utterly empty while reading this.

I absolutely adored this book! It was heart-warming and beautiful in its simplicity. Fans of Fredrik Backman will love this one! No other book has made me legit sob like this one did. Not a single dainty tear but full blown audible sobs. I’m still recovering but can’t recommend this book enough!

Such an impressive debut novel that easily holds its own amongst the amazing stories being written by Irish authors.

When All Is Said gives us the great fortune of spending a night with 84 year old Maurice Hannigan while he sits at the bar of the Rainsford Hotel. Maurice is a difficult man but it is easy to fall in love him as he reveals the choices that he has made over his life (focusing on accruing wealth, taking revenge on the rich Dollard family that treated him and his family terribly) and the regrets he holds (not honouring his loved ones as he should have). Tonight, he has booked the VIP suite at the hotel and intends to make a toast to each of the key people who influenced his life. These 5 toasts are made to his brother, his daughter, his sister-in-law, his son, and the love of his life, his deceased wife, Sadie. I was rapidly sucked into these the stories behind each toast and Maurice's analysis of his life's choices. As we inch closer to the inevitable conclusion of the night, I was sorry to say goodbye to Maurice.

Thank you to the author, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

Can you believe I am crying in public? Whew this one really pulled at my heartstrings. <b>When All Is Said</b> is a love letter from a father to his son. Maurice Hannigan has come to the end of his life. In the 84 years that he has graced this earth he has known love and heartache, victory and defeat. On this given night we are able to experience his joy and his pain as he toasts those people who have had the greatest impact on his life: his older brother Tony, his sister in law, his children and his wife. An emotional and absorbing tale that will linger with you long after you have put down the pages. Brava Anne Griffin! Absolutely fabulous debut!

<i>Special thanks to NetGalley, Thomas Dunne and Anne Griffin for access to this ARC.</i>

When All Is Said by Anne Griffin is the most beautiful story of the beginning, middle and end of Maurice Hannigan's life. It's about what he loved, what he lost, how he loved and what he most regretted.

Over the course of one night, 84 year old Maurice Hannigan sits and drinks at a bar in a hotel he knows only too well, and toasts the five most important people in his life before he goes up to his hotel room to go to sleep for the last time. Through each of the chapters we learn of his all consuming love for his brother and his wife Sadie who he lost two years ago to the day. The story follows his life including the heart wrenching loss of his child, Molly, who although she died before being born has been his moral compass for most of his life. We feel the longing he has to be with the love of his life Sadie, and how proud he is of his only child, a son Kevin. We empathize with him when he questions if perhaps be could have been a better husband and father. We feel his unspoken hate and revenge for a family he feels destroyed his own. We understand him when he talks about regrets.

This is such a powerful book with so many lessons for one to take from it. You fall in love with Maurice and dread the book coming to its end, hoping there will be a different outcome. And then you cry. You feel as if you have lost a good friend.

A remarkable story which you will keep in your heart.

Thank you #NetGalley #When All Is Said #Thomas Dunne Books #Anne Griffin for the incredible read. The book will be out on March 5.

An unforgettable first novel. A quissessentially Irish novel, filled with melancholy and angst. Maurice is 84, his beloved wife Sadie gone now for two years. His only child, a son lives in America with his family. He now sits at a bar in a restaurant, intending to toast the five individuals who had the greatest impact on his life. He has reserved the VIP suite for the night. The bar where he sits, the hotel he is in, had once been the house of the wealthiest family in the village. This house figured largely in his youth, and the memories are not good ones. He is lonely,sorely misses his wife, feels as if he belongs nowhere, to none. Now though, Maurice has a plan.

As he drinks each drink we learn the story of his life. The importance of a gold coin, which is also the continuous item that travels through his stories. Maurice is very likable, a flawed character, and so very human. It is a novel with a few gothic undertones, one filled with guilt and envy. Love that couldn't be expressed. A sensitive exploration of guilt and regret. A quiet novel, a heartfelt story that feels very real. A story of a father and son that had trouble connecting. The last chapter is an emotional slayer, but the memorable last line brought the curtain down. One of the best last lines i have ever read.

Fans of the late, great William Trevor will appreciate this novel.

ARC from Netgalley.

First 5 star novel of 2019!

Anne Griffin is amazingly talented. She had me sitting in the bar with Maurice, listening to him make a toast at 84 years old to each of his five favourite people. Maurice had me laughing, crying, getting angry — including at him more than a few times — and shaking my head. Maurice grew up in a village near Dublin, and he never left. But he managed to get out of the poverty of his childhood, marry Sadie and have a son Kevin, and and amass a few grudges. He has now sold everything he owns, checked into the local hotel and climbed onto a stool in the bar. In the form a toast per chapter, he addresses his son, recounting his life, tallying his regrets and coming to grips with his life. He has a sharp tongue, a stubborn streak and a hard shell - but also has a bit of a soft side. There were a couple of small things in the plot that I didn’t love, but this was nevertheless a true 5 star read for me. I can’t wait to read Griffin’s next book. This was a buddy read with my lovely GR friends, Diane and Angela — always a treat to read together. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

There are 5 star books and then there are five star books with a story that make me wish I could give more stars. This is one of them. There are debut novels and then there are debut novels which after I’ve finished reading, have me thinking, wow what a debut and hoping that the author is working on her next book. This is one of them.

I don’t drink much beer, let alone one “not from the fridge” and certainly not stout. I don’t like whiskey at all, but I wanted to be sitting at this bar drinking every one of the five toasts to people in his life, in his heart along with Maurice Hannigan. Maurice Hannigan had me from the first page. It felt like a memoir, touching on events and people in his life, his life exposed as he tells these stories. The heartache and grief and happiness that life brought to him and the excruciating loneliness as we meet him at age 84. I felt his grief, understood his regrets and felt the love he had for these people in his life: his beloved brother Tony, his first child Molly, his sister-in-law Maureen, his son Kevin, and the love of his life, Sadie. I won’t tell you here about them because it’s Maurice’s story to tell and it’s best to hear it from him. I recommend that you do.

This is a beautifully told story of grief, guilt, regret, family and the depths of loneliness tempered only by the love he feels for these people. A truly amazing debut, a story rendered in a unique and near perfect way. Here’s to you Maurice, a character deserving of being remembered.

This was a monthly read with Diane and Esil, my favorite book buddies. I was glad to have shared this one with them. Here’s to you, my friends.


I received an advanced copy of this book from Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley.