Books: an exposé of Opus Dei from an ex-member
This week there’s an exposé of Opus Dei from an ex-member, a book about the tricky topic of intimacy in relationships, and there are three very different works of fiction.
The Tarot Reader of Versailles, Anya Bergman, Manilla Press, €16.99
Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand was a celebrated bookseller and sought-after necromancer based in Paris during the Revolution and the Napoleonic era. Among her clients were leading revolutionaries like Marat and Robespierre, but she also told Marie Antionette’s fortune and foresaw what would happen to her. In a clever and elegantly written blend of fact and fiction, Bergman introduces a young Irish woman, Cait, who has moved to Paris in search of love. Cait also has a gift; she can see into people’s pasts, where Marie Anne can see into their futures. The two women form a relationship. But Cait has other loyalties. Back in Ireland, there is a taste for rebellion, and she has more urgent business to attend to in helping to make that happen. Bergman’s previous novel, also based on fact, is the bestseller The Witches of Vardo, and she’s published ten other novels under her real name, Noelle Harrison. This novel is bound to be another hit for the author, who has made her home in Meath.
Love, Lies and Sticky Toffee Pudding, Karin Walker, Poolbeg, €16.99
Charlotte, Jasmine and Sarah-Jane are three close friends in their late 30s, all facing some kind of crossroads in their lives. Charlotte is a successful lawyer with a catastrophic love life. Her latest flame has ditched her and she invites him on an all-expenses-paid trip to Barbados to inform her of what she’s done wrong. Sarah-Jane has moved with her young family to Cornwall. But hubby still works in the city, only coming home at weekends and leaving Sarah-Jane essentially a single mother. She’s not a happy camper. Jasmine is haunted by her past and is stuck in a self-destructive cycle of short-lived relationships of the love ‘em and leave ‘em kind. Each friend is brought to a crisis and each one must eventually work out for themselves that self-regard is the key to a happy life. Each one of them needs to find a way to stop putting themselves last. A charming debut.
Serve, Anne Marie Allen, Gill, €17.99
Subtitled My Lost Years at the Heart of Opus Dei, this is a shocking recollection of the life of a domestic servant in this peculiar and secretive church body. Anne Marie was ‘recruited’ into Opus Dei through a cookery school (that effectively didn’t exist) and promised a bright future as a chef. But that’s not what happened. She suffered horrifically and any thoughts of escape from a life of degrading domestic slavery and mandatory daily self-harm would be quickly quashed by institute officials, experts in ‘sin’ and doling out shame like confetti. This is plain old brainwashing, and new recruits are deliberately targeted while in their vulnerable and uncertain teens. What the author describes here is a Magdalene laundry without the baby-trafficking. And like all the finest cults, it’s extremely difficult to leave. Had it not been for her parents and their prolonged insistence, she might still be in Opus Dei. The book raises questions about why this society, with a centre very near Navan, is still allowed to exist. Apparently, their response to that frequently asked question is that their continuation is enshrined in Canon Law. Handy. But if the law is an ass, whether canonical or secular, wouldn’t it be time to change it? From what this reader has read, Pope Francis was no fan of Opus Dei, who are particularly rigorous in South America. It would be interesting to discover what our current Pontiff has to say about them.
Intimacy, Ita O’Brien, Ebury Press, €16.99
Ita O’Brien is an ‘intimacy co-ordinator’ on film shoots. In other words, she instructs the actors on how to be convincing in an intimate scene, where boundaries must be handled with care. Her book explores how we rate and experience intimacy at different stages of our lives and how, or if, we can improve our intimate relationships. It also explores how what we see on the silver screen can influence our expectations in real-life relationships, which is interesting. It’s not raunchy, so forget it if that’s what you’re looking for. Rather, it is O’Brien’s personal take on what creates intimacy, what is needed to sustain it and what kind of emotional investment is required. If that’s ringing bells for you, it’s in the shops now.
A Family Matter, Claire Lynch, Chatto and Windus, €15.99
In 1982, after the birth of her baby, Maggie’s mother Dawn met a woman and began an extra-marital relationship. Her husband Heron destroyed Dawn and she was removed from the family home, never to be seen or heard of again. Maggie, now 40-odd, does not know about that family history. Her father Heron’s version of events is that her mother simply upped sticks and deserted them, a deliberate lie that Maggie has had no reason to investigate in the intervening years. In Thatcher’s Britain of the 1980s, much was made of ‘family values’ no matter how much havoc those values might wreak. A gay parent was practically unheard of, and they surfaced, they were to be eradicated. They were not allowed to raise children. Heron is now an old man and has received a diagnosis of late-stage cancer, another secret he attempts to keep from his daughter, now married with her own family. But secrets have a habit of revealing themselves. This is a fraught but beautifully written story of family and so-called morality, about empty ‘values’ and the absence of love.
Footnotes
The Irish language book awards ceremony is in Galway on September 30. The shortlists for the awards have been published; there are three – Best Adult’s, Best Children’s and Best Translation into Irish. If you’re interested in reading any of the nominations, you’ll find all the details at antoireachtas.ie.
If you’re looking for an interesting cultural and colourful day out, you could try Brazil Day in the National Stadium in Dublin this coming Saturday, September 6, where there will be market stands and food trucks galore, face painting, music and dance. See brazildaydublin.com for more information.