Fiction: Chicklit outings frequently begin by dunking their fictional heroine in disaster - a disaster to which the plucky lass responds, as often as not, by gritting her teeth, fixing her hair, starting a new business and making lots and lots of dosh.
The State of Grace begins with the sacking of its eponymous heroine from her job as a TV producer in an advertising agency. Grace, however, skips the teeth- gritting. Instead she takes up smoking, learns how to forge her ex-husband's signature on credit card purchase slips and embarks on a somewhat blood-curdling course of driving lessons in a series of "borrowed" - i.e., temporarily stolen - cars.
It's a good start - and it gets better. From the very first chapter of this book, the reader can relax, safe in the hands of an author who is obsessed neither by lurve nor lipstick. Having both worked extensively in the advertising industry in Ireland and, more recently, commented on it in newspapers and magazines, Catherine Donnelly knows her source material inside out - and it shows.
The State of Grace is at its best when taking an acerbic sideways look at the selling game. Thus Grace's managing director explains that, rather than sacking her because she's getting past it, he's actually "letting her go" from a "young person's industry". Two of the latter duly turn up within a couple of pages - the delightfully named creative duo, Dion and Melvin - while a couple of chapters further on, Grace overhears a senior account executive bawling at an underling: "Jesus Christ - all I want is a big, fuck-off bottle and a line - preferably funny - that includes the word 'refreshing'. Is that asking too much?"
A big, fuck-off bottle and a line, preferably funny. Sums up a lot of things, when you think about it. Which is not to say that, in this début novel, Donnelly has done everything right. One-liners which should be effortless sometimes try too hard ("Lionel, of course, was the worst accident of all - the relationship equivalent of a five-car pile-up . . ."). Grace's tricky relationship with her grown-up offspring is delicately portrayed, but the phoney love-hate war between her parents is way too cute for comfort.
The storyline has an oddly familiar ring - Grace fixes her hair, starts a new business and makes lots and lots of dosh - and for a book which assumes a readership sophisticated enough to cope with "requisite" and "lustrous", The State of Grace contains some pretty hair-raising spelling errors. (I mean, come on, folks - "hoards" of children?)
Quibbles aside, though, this is that rare commodity - feelgood fiction which actually feels good.
• Arminta Wallace is an Irish Times journalist
The State of Grace
By Catherine Donnelly
Sitric Books, 255pp, €12.99
