FICTION: ANNA CAREYreviews Pieces of My HeartBy Sinéad Moriarty Penguin Ireland, 439pp, £12.99
ON PAPER, Ava’s life looks perfect. She’s got an interesting job, a good marriage, two beloved daughters, a loyal best friend and a father who loves her. But beneath the surface, the heroine of Sinéad Moriarty’s new novel is struggling. Her husband, Paul, spends all his time at work; her recently widowed father has moved into their house and acquired a new pole-dancer girlfriend; her daughter Sarah seems to care about nothing but boys and make-up; and Alison, her hardworking, “perfect” daughter, has developed a serious eating disorder.
Ava’s attempts to balance her responsibilities make for a readable if uneven novel. Moriarty’s depiction of Ava’s sometimes fraught but essentially positive relationship with both of her daughters rings true, and Alison’s struggles with anorexia are sensitively described and clearly well-researched. During the scenes in which Ava and Paul talk to Alison’s counsellor, however, it sometimes feels as though large chunks of the dialogue were taken straight from an eating disorder charity’s helpful leaflet. But the bewildered parents’ attempts to help and understand their troubled daughter are both convincing and moving. As is the plight of Ava’s best friend and colleague, Sally, whose perfect new romance is threatened by the fact that he wants to have children and she doesn’t. Sally isn’t demonised for her lack of maternal instincts and she still manages to get her happy ending.
Ava’s father, Charlie, however, is a seriously misjudged character. Moriarty is clearly aiming for “lovable rogue”; the final result, however, is more like a creepy, pathetic sex pest, a man who harasses the cleaning lady, forces his daughter to house his new girlfriend and talks about his sexual needs in front of his young granddaughters. There’s nothing charming or lovable about him. And the least said about his Polish girlfriend, Nadia, a stereotypical Eastern European gold-digger, complete with “comedy” accent, the better.
Far more successful, if equally over the top, are young Sarah and her gormless but good-natured boyfriend, Bobby. Sarah is brash, over-confident and utterly fearless, and Moriarty somehow manages to make her endearing rather than obnoxious. Her relationship with the devoted Bobby (they share a love of fake tan) is strangely charming as well as funny, although the slapstick nature of some of their scenes does jar slightly with the generally serious tone. Moriarty hasn’t developed Marian Keyes’s gift for balancing humour and darkness, and the dialogue is slightly clunky at times. But this is still a thoughtful and enjoyable novel.
Anna Carey is a freelance journalist
