Hidden Symptoms

Madden evokes life in modern Belfast through her three characters. Kathy and Theresa are university students; Robert, Kathy's lover, is a journalist. He is an atheist, they are Catholic. Theresa is an intellectual, an activist in spirit, but nearly destroyed by the brutal murder of her beloved twin brother. Robert cares nothing for politics or religion, and in his denial isolates his soul till it is almost incapable even of remembering feeling. Kathy, between these extremes, tries to establish relationships, but finds barriers everywhere. The tensions and frustrations of their lives, reflections of the city, permeate every event, every contact. Madden's skill as a short story writer is clear in the economy of her novel: every character is sharp, the atmosphere pervasive. This is not a panorma, but a focused glimpse, as through a surgeon's eye, of a terrible malignancy. Ann Donovan, Central Washington Univ. Lib., Ellensburg
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