SOURCE: Review of The Long Falling, in Washington Post Book World, May 3, 1998, p. 13.

[In the following review, the critic states that the emotional intricacies contained within The Long Falling are "thoroughly examined."]

The complex relationship between love, fear and betrayal is thoroughly examined in this debut novel by Ridgway, a young Dubliner. Ridgway's protagonist, Grace Quinn, is an Englishwoman who has lived her entire adult life in rural Ireland. Isolated by religion and circumstance, she has remained an outsider. Her isolation is exacerbated by an abusive husband (who blames her for the long-ago death of one of their sons) and an estranged relationship with her remaining son, a homosexual whose lifestyle is condemned by his father An act of desperation forces Grace to seek out Martin in Dublin. Confusion haunts her as she journeys. "It clung to her." Ridgway writes. "In the dim light of Dublin, with the...