Reviews
SNOWFLAKE
BY LOUISE NEALON / ALLEN & UNWIN $29.99
This is a gem of a book. It’s an exhilarating, enchanting, witty, raucous, touching and humorous observation about coming of age in rural (and urban) Ireland. Debbie White, our narrator, is an eighteen year old who lives on a small County Kildare dairy farm with her uncle Billy and mother Maeve. Billy, an eccentric devotee of the classics, inhabits a ramshackle caravan on the property and, when not tending the cows, whiles away his time on its roof watching the stars. Billy likes to drink but as Debbie remarks “it is socially acceptable to be an alcoholic …. as long as you don’t get treatment for it”. Maeve, who is carrying on an affair with the young farm hand, sleeps too much, collects shells, records her dreams and occasionally dances naked amongst nettles to benefit from their healing powers. Urged by Barry, Debbie is accepted to study English at Trinity College, Dublin, and daily swaps early mornings as a milk maid for city chic and the pretentious trials, and joys, of academia. Shy, nervous, disorganised and somewhat naïve, Debbie is shunned by her fellow students with the 76 | THE IRISH SCENE
exception of the outgoing and confident Xanthe, who takes Debbie under her wing helping her to negotiate the tribulations of Fresher’s Week and university life both in and out of College. On the farm, Billy’s drinking gets worse, Maeve has an accident as her mental state deteriorates while she derives comfort and contentment from her dreams . Despite all these impending perils plus the social and academic frustrations of Trinity, Debbie discovers, as she grows up, that even the oddest of families are havens of safety as she clings to the fierce family bonds which hold them all together. The Trinity College setting and exploration of maturation harps back to Sally Rooney’s Normal People, but Debbie’s is an original and distinctive voice with every sentence a delight to read. This is Nealon’s debut novel – reputedly sold last year for a “six figure sum”. Given the book’s ending, hopefully a sequel is in the offing. – Reviewed by John Hagan
SHE COME BY IT NATURAL
BY SARAH SMARCH / ONE PUBLISHING $22.99
Dolly Parton and Sarah Smarsh began life as two of a kind - both born in poverty on struggling family farms in the American backblocks. Smarsh now scratches out a living in journalism, while Parton is a towering presence in country music and presiding over a multi-million dollar business empire. On the journey, Parton has broken ground “for female artists, for poor girls with dreams, for women who would like to be bosses without hiding their breasts”. Smarsh examines the genesis of some of Parton’s hit songs such as ‘Jolene’ (a real life female bank teller
