Irish children’s books have for so long been dominated by fantasy and by historical fiction that the arrival over the past few years of novels set in contemporary Ireland, dealing with contemporary matters, has been welcome.
Many of these have come from a new generation of writers, often women, who have injected an increased dimension of realism into our stock of indigenous children’s literature, especially that intended for the young adult reader. This “realism” is not, of course, a totally new phenomenon, but what differentiates it from its predecessors is its willingness to embrace topics (and frequently modes of expression) that would earlier have been considered inappropriate for the age group.
Changes in society’s attitudes towards our teenagers are, gradually, being accompanied by changes in attitudes about what we should be offering them to read. In the Irish context these changes, at least where certain topics are concerned, have come slowly. But they have come, however tentatively, and the best of the literature they have encouraged has added to the reading experience of our young. But only the best, for much of this fiction, while reflecting adolescent experience, rarely illuminates it.
Anna Carey's previous young-adult novels, The Real Rebecca and Rebecca Rules, have enjoyed popular and critical success, not least because of their mingling of these facets of reflection and illumination, both handled in first-person diary style with an attractive lightness of touch. There is no preaching, no didacticism.
In her new novel this lightness of touch is once more in evidence. Rebecca and her friends Alice and Cass, 14-year-olds approaching the end of their second year in St Dominic’s, their north Dublin secondary school, have examinations on their mind and, certainly in Rebecca’s case, parental demands and expectations to cope with. They are happiest, however, when devoting their time and energy to the participation of their band in a music camp to be held over the summer break.
The book’s early pages are sharply entertaining in their depiction of Rebecca’s life at school and in her middle-class Drumcondra home: her author mother, her academic father and their shared obsession with amateur drama are especially amusing. But, when the music camp opens its doors, more serious themes emerge, as Carey reveals her insights into the thinking and behaviour of today’s young Irish, their strengths and their vulnerabilities. These come clearly into focus against the music-camp background, itself portrayed with an authenticity of immediate appeal to all who, like Rebecca and friends, have ever dreamed of making their mark in the world of rock.
It is difficult to handle such young teenage themes without being patronising or pompous, but Carey admirably avoids both temptations, resulting in a novel refreshing not just in its good-natured humour – there are some delightfully sly and mischievous one-liners – but also in its unsentimental endorsement of youthful dreams and aspirations.
By choosing a cast of characters in their early teens (as distinct, say, from a group of Leaving Certificate students) Carey is able to write a novel free from the excesses of social and sexual behaviour to which so much young-adult fiction is currently addicted. This does not mean that her young people are spared the early intimations of romantic feeling or their first awareness of sexual urges.
Rebecca, still haunted by the memories of the wonderful Paperboy and the less-than-wonderful John Kowalski of the early books, confides at one point: “I wish I could just fall in love with someone. Who liked me too, obviously.” This “someone” may, or may not, have come by the book’s concluding page – but it is the hope that gives Rebecca’s desire its poignancy.
It is, however, in her treatment of the growth to sexual identity of one of Rebecca’s band mates that Carey, certainly in the context of Irish young-adult fiction, most obviously enters largely unexplored new territory.
Overtly lesbian fiction aimed primarily at a young-adult readership has existed for almost 40 years, the genre usually seen as dating from the (American) Rosa Guy novel Ruby, published in 1976 – and, incidentally, followed two years later by Deborah Hautzig's Hey, Dollface, the latter of which turns out to be the name of Rebecca's band.
In Irish young-adult fiction the theme has remained largely untouched, with the significant exceptions of Geraldine Meade's 2011 novel Flick and Katherine Farmar's more recent Wormwood Gate. The pages in Carey's novel in which her young lesbian character announces her coming out to her friends and in which they give their reactions are superbly written: tone is everything, and it could not be better handled than it is here.
The right of Irish teenagers to discover, express and rejoice in their sexual preferences has been asserted without resort to histrionics or hysteria.
Robert Dunbar is a commentator on children’s books
