Frida Slattery As Herself – ‘both a love story of sorts and a career story’
As the good weather continues, even those whose summer break is over, or has not begun yet, can hopefully grab a couple of hours of sunshine out the back. There’s nothing that goes with sun like a good read.
Frida Slattery As Herself, Ana Kinsella, Scribner €19.
Both a love story of sorts and a career story, the novel follows young Frida Slattery and John Reddin from their first meeting in a Dublin pub in 2006. Frida is starting out on her acting career while John writes and directs theatre. They collaborate on and off, here in Ireland, the UK and the States.
This is no linear love story, but follows them through their collaborations, where each brings out the best in each other – on the stage, at least. Their private lives are not quite so successful and it’s an on-again, off-again account of how the relationship develops over 16 years, including during the dark days of Covid.
It’s an engaging story, one which has been likened to David Nicholls’ fiction but I wouldn’t go that far. Sally Rooney, possibly. But it was the subject of a multi-way bidding war between publishers, which is unusual for a debut novel, and since it’s original and fresh, one can see why.
The Things We Never Say, Elizabeth Strout, Viking €18.99
Strout’s latest book is both a deeply personal novel and a state-of-the-nation, or even state-of-the-world novel, and only a writer of Strout’s stature could pull this off so successfully.
Artie Dam is a high school history teacher in smalltown Maine, married to a family therapist. Along with their grown up son, during the novel’s timeline, they move to Europe. On purpose. He’s had enough of America.
Artie loves his son dearly and knows the young man is somewhat fractured, having been the driver of a car when he was 17 that killed his girlfriend.
The family have moved on the best they can, but this is not the only shadow in Artie’s life. He is to learn that everything he held dear and everything he believed in has been a lie, and this shatters him completely.
When his friend, who is also his school principal, kills himself because he was caught by ICE ‘harbouring illegal immigrants’, it is the last straw for Artie and he obsesses over the issue of free will. Do we really have any free will, or is our life determined by the deeds of others? And what can we as citizens do when we become ruled by a president who’s an orangutan?
A multi-faceted and intensely moving novel, without Strout’s trademark optimism. That’s a deliberate move and you’d wonder, is this author feeling as hopeless and helpless about the world as the rest of us?
Lie With Me, Monica McGuinness, Poolbeg €17.99
Leah Connolly has escaped from and survived a sickeningly abusive relationship with Nathan, a man who used to say he’d die for her but more recently seems to want to make sure it’s Leah that dies.
She’s on the run from Nathan, but she also needs to work and so she takes on a photography assignment on the shores of Lough Béal. She’s staying in a cabin on the lakeshore, which is risky – Nathan is looking for her, she’s pretty sure of that – but it also gives her some much needed peace and quiet, time to repair the damage done and look towards the future.
But things begin to happen there. She takes photographs of creepy incidents but the haunting images, when she checks those photographs, are simply not there. Is she going mad or is someone messing with her head? A fine follow-up to McGuinness’s first novel, Crowfield House, and just as tense.
The Long Way Home, Helen Dwyer, Poolbeg €17.99
This is one woman’s story but really, it’s the story of many women in Ireland in the 20th century when they discovered there were pregnant out of wedlock. Fiona was just 16 when she delivered her baby girl in 1976 and, in some ways, she was ‘lucky’ – she wasn’t flung into a Mother and Baby home, but was allowed to have the child in a normal hospital away from home in Sligo, although her daughter was still taken away from her immediately.
Eight years on, and she’s looking back at her experience following her father’s sudden death and the funeral that followed.
She has never seen her daughter and has a lot to say about it, to both her mother and younger brother. She was ‘farmed out’ to a cousin at the time of the birth and adoption and from there travelled to Italy, where the gods smiled on her.
But now, back in Ireland, she’s consumed with the past she’s and also consumed with finding out where her daughter is, although the law won’t allow her to do so.
Simply because of its universality among so many women in this country, and indeed their babies who are now grown up, I would expect this novel to be a huge seller, It’s well written and echoes a familiar dark episode in many lives.
The Sisters of Hope Square, Faith Hogan, Head of Zeus €14.99
Two sisters, the daughters of hoteliers, both hope to inherit the Hope Square Hotel but only one sister, Rae, succeeds. The inheritance will drive a wedge between Rae and her sister Blythe for years.
In the meantime, Blythe accesses and runs a guesthouse nearby, and successfully too. Rae by now lives alone in Hope Square Hotel.
The reader is taken back and forth between the past and the present to investigate why Hope Square ended up as it did. Family feuds are always interesting, but what garners further interest here is the younger generation, especially Siggy, who yearns for freedom and independence, but her parents have other ideas. An ideal read for the poolside or patio.
Footnotes
The Earagail Arts Festival run till July 25, with plenty still to see in the beautiful county of Donegal. It’s a great mix of theatre, music, arts and culture and if you’re holidaying anywhere nearby it’s worth a visit. See eaf.ie for details.
The Forest Fest in the village of Emo in Laois looks promising this year, with some very big musical names from the past and present all set to entertain you, till July to 26. For details see forestfest.ie.