Modern day Irish: The Rachel Incident

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue

published 2023

 

I loved this book: I thought it was the perfect combination of charm, entertainment, great pictures of relationships, and real content, beautifully structured and laid out.

Comparisons aren’t always helpful, but without being mean this is what I hoped Sally Rooney’s books would be like, and they’re not. (I don’t think SR’ll care)

The main action takes place in the Republic of Ireland, the city of Cork around 2009. Rachel is a student, working in a bookshop on the side as the Irish economy goes into freefall, who ends up sharing a tiny house with her workmate and new gay best friend James. Their love lives over the next year or so entertain us as much as them. But this is no episodic, sitcom-style series of adventures: there is a very real story going on the whole time. Along the way we see family relations, economic disasters, and the joys of student social life.

Rachel has a crush on her tutor, Dr Byrne, and then meets his wife – the two are a civilized, Bohemian, academic couple, friendly and sociable. It’s a great recognizable situation, and a wonderful trope for a novel. It reminded me of Barbara Trapido’s Brother of the More famous Jack (now there’s a book I must re-read, and see if it’s as good as I remember: it is mentioned briefly in this post, and is mentioned in this book - Rachel has a copy ‘heavily underlined’ on her shelves).

It is full of hilarious moments. Dr Byrne, the tutor, has a launch party in the bookshop for his hopeless new academic book:

It seemed a revolutionary act of kindness, like the Make-A-Wish Foundation but for well-liked men nearing forty.

Rachel watches Ab Fab: ‘Feeling like Edie, longing to be Patsy.’

Lissa Evans is a much-loved author round here, and in my post on her latest book I said this:

She is fair in the playground sense. She also treats her readers as adults, letting them draw their own conclusions at times…. I love the jokes, and an author who isn’t just phoning it in, there’s no filler. 

I was praising Evans, and also Kevin Kwan, and Tana French: completely different authors, but in my personal pantheon they go together, and Caroline O’Donoghue joins them. (I can’t think what my name for their category will be.)

There are so many great moments and descriptions in this book.

Here Rachel is thinking about Dr Byrne's wife:

There are too many clichés about male English professors and their adoring young students for her not to have been on the alert. She had been in his class herself, albeit as an MA student. This is what it’s like to love an unreliable man, or to have an untenable job, or an unsteady parent, or an ill child. It is the outfit you constantly dress up and down, accessorising it according to what insecurities hang well, what caveats are the most slimming. But we were close in age; but I was still his student; but we are in love; but what’s to say he won’t fall in love again.

 

An excellent look at Irish men:

James says there are three kinds of Irish male body types: tennis, rugby and hurling. James was tennis: lean frame, long bones. Dr Byrne was rugby: thick-set, a tendency towards chubby, and would look large regardless of how much weight he gained or lost. Carey was hurling. He was slim and smallish, but compact, square and muscled. ‘Built like a Jack Russell terrier,’ he said of himself. ‘And every bit as common.’

And O’Donoghue is also very good on her clothes descriptions:

She opened the door wearing a pinafore dress with a black roll neck underneath, and her headband was the same colour as the dress. She dressed like something between a primary school teacher and Daphne from Scooby Doo.. She led me through to the kitchen, shoeless in black tights. I felt enormous next to her.

 [This gave me a very clear picture of how she looked, and I don't think the picture does full justice to it: if I ever find the right image I will probably come back and add it to this post]

I had dressed to be fancied. Leopard-print mini skirt, tight black funnel neck, leather jacket. I was freezing

 

I always enjoy a disastrous dinner party (a topic I wrote about for the Guardian) and there is one here that is wonderfully horrible.

I think Caroline O’Donoghue is an excellent writer, and I look forward to her next book… In the meantime, I do recommend The Rachel Incident if you want to be charmed and entertained by what I'm going to call a real novel.

Apparently it is going to be turned into a TV drama - something to look out for.

Top picture is of a birthday card I was lucky enough to receive - greatly complimented. The picture is by Marcella Cooper, who has wonderful pictures on her website here.

ADDED LATER: Bill Selnes, of the Mysteries and More blog, is a great friend to this blog, and particularly is our goto expert on legal matters, Canada and sports. AND, he is our top consultant on 'practical, effective and attractive outfits for stylish women'. He is very concerned about Rachel getting cold in the final picture, and has come up with a better outfit for her: 

In which, see his comment below, he feels Rachel will still be fanciable. Thanks as ever Bill!