The Rachel Incident gets five stars from me

This is both a small story of one woman's decade--from seedy university digs and hangovers with her gay roommate through professional development to the birth of her first child--and the story of Ireland's financial and social turmoil of the early 21st century. It tackles abuse of power and academic privilege, the difficulties and exultations of coming out queer in a college town filled with football hooligans and conservative religious parents, couple dynamics viewed through the lenses of several different Rachels in the course of her evolution toward maturity. And especially it speaks of lies, their endurance and their evolution. 

Amid the memorable images of drunken sprees and devastating breakups are some deeply resonant lines, such as

He talked about the book industry as if it were a dragon that was chained in the basement, and would tear us limb from limb at any moment.

I suspect most authors, editors, and booksellers would agree. Even some agents...

 

The book launch scene in chapter 7 is--apart from one notable backroom moment--both entertaining and cringingly familiar to authors and bookstore owners.

At one point Rachel talks about bands whose names she wouldn’t remember a decade later but that occupied "a magical sweet space between celebrity and accessibility.” 

 

For me this book is a magical sweet space between Ireland as it is, Ireland of the bleak financial-crash years before the Celtic Tiger roared anew, and the Ireland that was and remains shaped indelibly by the starvation times under Queen Victoria. Ireland has a long and complex memory, and that is infused in every page of this engaging tale of a young woman growing up, navigating her world not always wisely. Her happy ending isn't one I'd have envisioned, and yet it was perfect for her. I dare you not to tear up.

 

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

the New York Times best-selling author of All Our Hidden Gifts

#Ireland #abortion #university #comingout #goinghome #financialcrash #womensfiction #Netgalley