Novels that explore the challenges faced by victims of mental health problems can make for difficult reads although, at their best, they help to illuminate the hardships faced by the sufferers and their loved ones. From Mrs Dalloway to Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s recent Starling Days, writers have frequently imagined characters laid low by inexplicable anxieties and depression, sometimes succumbing to their illness, sometimes surviving it.
Helen Cullen’s second novel is a strong addition to this body of work, following the experiences of an Irish family across 40 years. A compassionate portrayal of love, support and grief, The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually contains moments so recognisable to anyone who has suffered from depression that credit must be given to Cullen for depicting mental illness in all its senseless brutality while never exploiting it for sentimental reasons.
The story opens on Christmas Eve 2005, on the Aran Islands, where Murtagh Moone wakes to find that his wife Maeve has gone missing. There’s a palpable tension in these opening pages, Murtagh dreading the worst and, within the prologue, we discover that she has, in fact, taken her own life.
It’s a dramatic start, Cullen cranking up the tension as Murtagh’s four children spread out across the wild terrain in search of their beloved mother, each one dreading the inevitable discovery of a body. From there, we return to the first meeting of the young lovers and their path towards romance, marriage and tragedy.
She is never less than loving, so her decision to end her life is one that, naturally, has a profound effect on all those around her
These early sections are filled with hope, and the scenes of a young couple falling in love quickly, while experiencing nothing but joy in each other’s company, are well crafted and relatable. Both characters are creatives – Murtagh a talented potter, Maeve an aspiring actress – but an opportunity to move to Inis Óg to build Murtagh’s workshop brings an effective end to Maeve’s artistic ambitions. It’s not clear how much pressure he puts on her to follow his goals rather than her own; after all, one can throw pots anywhere but it’s difficult to build an acting career on an island of 199 people.
Still, if he’s inconsiderate to his wife’s dreams, he is never manipulative or bullying and she, in turn, is no one’s fool. It’s a decision they make together, albeit one that more mature minds might have realised contained the potential for disillusionment in later years.
Cullen draws their relationship with great care, but one senses that Murtagh, a deeply uxorious man, feels more comfortable expressing his emotions, and having them publicly on display, than in identifying Maeve as a human being in her own right, a person who feels the isolation of the island more than him. And while her illness gets in the way of her desire to be a better mother, she is never less than loving, so her decision to end her life is one that, naturally, has a profound effect on all those around her.
Anguish
There are many strengths to this novel, not least of which is the author’s decision not to fill the pages with anguish. Maeve takes to her bed when “the crow” lands on her shoulder, but she also displays an understanding of her condition and an ability to talk about depression in a considered way.
There is one particularly hilarious moment involving the oldest child, Nollaig, and more of this anarchic humour would have been welcome throughout
In one moving passage, she describes how she can sense the illness approaching from afar, cognisant that, when it lands, it will be merciless until the day it simply chooses to fly away again. She identifies it as a migrating bird, one that disappears for long portions of the year, but will return, preparing to nest, sooner or later.
As the children leave their teenage years behind, the nature of adult grief becomes the novel’s preoccupation. Some have come to terms with Maeve’s loss more successfully than others, and a climactic birthday party sees the entire family return together where some startling secrets are revealed.
There is one particularly hilarious moment involving the oldest child, Nollaig, and more of this anarchic humour would have been welcome throughout, for it left me laughing out loud. Perhaps in future books Cullen will allow herself to loosen her tightly controlled prose a little and let some more of these moments in, for she handles it with aplomb. In a dark novel, occasional moments of levity can prove very welcome.
Following her highly original debut, The Lost Letters of William Woolf, Helen Cullen has taken a step towards something more introspective with her second book, suggesting a writer whose skill is matched by an ability to surprise with each new work.
John Boyne’s latest novel is A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom (Doubleday)
