The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore

First published: 1955, as Judith Hearne

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of plot: 1950’s

Locale: Belfast, Northern Ireland

Principal characters

• Judith Hearne, an unmarried woman in her forties
• Mrs. Henry Rice, her landlady
• Bernard, her landlady’s son
• James Madden, her landlady’s brother
• Aunt D’Arcy, her deceased aunt
• Father Quigley, her parish priest
• Moira O’Neill, her friend
• Edie Marrinan, an acquaintance

The Story:

Judith Hearne takes a room at a boardinghouse run by Mrs. Henry Rice, a widow. It is located on Camden Street, a rundown Belfast neighborhood that was once middle class, tidy, and secure. Judith places a photograph of the dead aunt who raised her on the mantelpiece and prepares to hang a print of the Sacred Heart above the bed to make the room seem homier.

Judith visits Mrs. Rice’s quarters. There, she meets Bernard, Mrs. Rice’s adult son. Bernard is an only child, as well as an unemployed university graduate and aspiring poet. Tirelessly pampered by his seemingly devout mother, Bernard nonetheless holds subversive religious views. Judith finds him and his ideas both intriguing and repulsive. They gossip about mutual acquaintances, the pastoral temperament of the parish priest, and Mary, the country girl Mrs. Rice has hired to help around the boardinghouse. Hearne returns to her room with a borrowed hammer to hang the Sacred Heart icon and prepares for sleep without supper.

Judith wakes wondering how she will spend the coming days. As she ritualistically washes up and brushes her hair before a mirror, she considers options for cheap dining, what she will wear, and how she will conduct herself at breakfast. She daydreams about the impression her jewelry and black-and-red dress will make. Once ready, she enters the breakfast parlor and sits down among her fellow lodgers. She is disappointed to discover that breakfast consists only of toast and tea, a discovery that affects her lunch and supper plans for the foreseeable future.

Mrs. Rice introduces Judith to the other guests, including James Madden. Madden, Mrs. Rice’s brother, has recently returned from the United States, where he lived and worked for thirty years. He impresses Judith with his talk of life in New York City. Judith assumes Madden is a man of means, and she silently resolves to learn more about the storied metropolis so she will have something to discuss with him to further their acquaintance.

Judith settles into life at the boardinghouse by maintaining a regular routine of teaching piano a few days a week, going to Mass, and attending Sunday teas at the O’Neills’. Moira O’Neill attended finishing school with Judith. She married well and now has several school-age children, who mock Judith’s appearance and mannerisms before she arrives each Sunday afternoon. Judith also begins socializing with James Madden. Madden suspects Judith has money, and he is eager to go into business with her. Judith interprets his proposed venture as proof of romantic interest.

Eventually, Judith learns the truth about Madden’s working-class past and the real reasons for his attentions. In despair, she drinks a bottle of whiskey reserved for medicinal purposes and disrupts life at the boardinghouse by loudly singing in her room throughout the night. To her shame, Judith later learns of the disturbance. What remains hidden from her is the fact that Bernard has been having a sexual affair with Mary, the house girl, and that Madden has caught them together. Angered and aroused by his nephew’s dalliance, Madden rapes Mary.

Judith’s life begins to unravel as her social routine disintegrates. She loses her last piano student, Madden avoids her, and the O’Neills become distant. She drinks nightly and begins to doubt her religious beliefs. She seeks guidance from Father Quigley in the confessional, but he simply advises her to pray. She sinks deeper into depression and seeks consolation in more drink.

Mrs. Rice evicts Judith from the boardinghouse. She withdraws almost all of her savings, rents a room at a posh hotel, buys several bottles of expensive spirits, and visits Edie Marrinan, a past acquaintance who gave Judith her first drink and now lies dying in a convalescent home run by a religious order. Judith and Edie attempt to drink a bottle of gin in the ward. The nuns caring for the institutionalized women forcibly remove Judith, who then seeks solace with Moira O’Neill. During their conversation, Judith realizes that Moira’s friendship is based on pity, not fellow feeling, and she leaves to seek more genuine compassion from Father Quigley. As before, though, the priest exhibits little patience for Judith’s situation and tells her to return only after she sobers up.

Despondent and drunk, Judith enters the church next to the rectory and loudly denounces God in the sanctuary. Stunned that she has not been struck dead for her blasphemy, Judith runs to the tabernacle where the Eucharist resides and, screaming, tears at the small golden doors until her fingers bleed. She blacks out.

The O’Neills institutionalize Judith. She receives several visitors—including various O’Neills, Father Quigley, and Aunt D’Arcy’s former physician—who attempt to cheer her with offers of friendship or encourage her to seek comfort in religious practice. Mistrustful of her social connections and her faith, Judith remains despondent. Finally, told her stay needs to be extended, Judith asks one of her caretakers to display Aunt D’Arcy’s portrait and the Sacred Heart picture in her room. The book closes as it opened, with Judith contemplating these images.

Bibliography

Craig, Patricia. Brian Moore: A Biography. London: Bloomsbury, 2002. This account of Moore’s complicated life avoids analysis and adheres to dates and events. Moore’s relationships with his mother, sisters, and wives bear special relevance to the portrayal of women in his work.

Dahlie, Hallvard. Brian Moore. Studies in Canadian Literature 2. Toronto, Ont.: Copp Clark, 1969. This modest yet thorough analysis of Moore’s first six novels devotes a chapter to The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. Illuminates the novel’s main themes by considering them in the larger context of subsequent works. Concludes with valuable bibliographical citations to contemporary reviews and early criticism.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Brian Moore. Boston: Twayne, 1981. An excellent introduction to Moore’s fiction. Draws compelling parallels between Moore’s and James Joyce’s works and careers. Chapter 3 presents historical perspectives on The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne’s growing critical significance since its 1955 publication.

Foster, John Wilson. “Passage Through Limbo.” In Forces and Themes in Ulster Fiction. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1974. Foster’s widely cited study devotes a chapter to Moore’s place and status in the history of Northern Irish fiction. Foster argues that the social dislocation Judith Hearne experiences as a rural woman thrust into a dehumanizing urban setting is further complicated by her increasingly eroded religious faith and burgeoning sexual frustration.

Green, Robert. “Brian Moore’s Judith Hearne: Celebrating the Commonplace.” International Fiction Review 7, no. 1 (Winter, 1980): 29-33. A concise examination of literary and biographical influences on the novel, this brief essay focuses on Moore’s acknowledged debt to Madame Bovary (1857; English translation, 1886) as a model for The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. Suggests that Moore’s status as an Irish writer living and working in Canada shaped his characterization of Judith’s own isolation.

Hicks, Patrick. Brian Moore and the Meaning of the Past: An Irish Novelist Reimagines History. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007. Sees Moore as intervening in historical discourse from the timeless point of view of Irish culture (within which there seems to be no history, only current events), as well as from spaces that seem to have no history.

O’Donoghue, Jo. Brian Moore: A Critical Study. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991. Uses selected works to consider Moore’s evolving religious sensibilities. The excellent essay on The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, “Religion Without Belief,” demonstrates how Moore’s narrative techniques in the novel convey and reinforce Judith’s victimization by the Catholic Church and by the faithful with whom she interacts.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “’A Pox on Both Their Houses’: Post-Colonial Religious Conflict in the Belfast Novels of Brian Moore.” In“And the Birds Began to Sing”: Religion and Literature in Post-Colonial Cultures, edited by Jamie S. Scott. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996. Explores the religious dimensions of Moore’s fiction set in Belfast and convincingly argues that Judith’s initial religious pretensions provide an ironic counterpoint to her deepening sense of social inferiority later in the novel. Sees these insecurities as ultimately undermining even her formerly stabilizing feelings of religious superiority.

Sampson, Denis. Brian Moore: The Chameleon Novelist. Dublin: Marino, 1998. Sampson utilizes Moore’s correspondence and personal writings to provide real-life contexts for his fiction. Judith Hearne, for example, was largely based on Miss Keogh, a Moore family acquaintance.

Sullivan, Robert. A Matter of Faith: The Fiction of Brian Moore. Contributions to the Study of World Literature 69. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. Traces Moore’s handling of the theme of religious faith in selected novels. Compares Judith Hearne to other Moore protagonists.