Saturday, March 05, 2011
THERE’S been a surge of teenage fiction by established Irish authors of late. And it seems a natural diversion for Denise Deegan, who has published four well-received novels for adults.
Those stories, featuring families in crisis, showed that she has an ear tuned in to the voices of children.
Alex is 16. She’s attractive, confident and popular. Daughter of a famous rock star, she attends a sought-after, south Dublin co-ed school, along with other children of the famous.
Life was good, until her mother died. But now her world has fallen apart.
She’s lost her father to work. Worst of all, she’s lost her trust in just about everything. She can’t confide in her two closest friends; she can’t stand the publicist, the cook and the entourage who surround ‘the Rockstar’. She stops captaining the hockey team, and rejects the advances of the American surfing dude, David McFadden.
David wants to help; his own mother died, but Alex can’t forgive him for being happy. The only person she can talk to is her feisty grandmother. Oh, and her beloved dog, Homer; a retriever who won’t retrieve.
When David rescues Alex from a lecherous guy at a party, she softens towards him. And soon their romance is in full flow. Then, he announces he’s going back to the States, and Alex’s world crumbles again. Will she learn to survive?
This is a gem of a book; intriguing, deep and thoughtful. Alex is a feisty heroine, and her voice rings strong and true.
It’s fun entering the world of the privileged teen, with their credit cards, fake tans and less-affluent friends. Teenagers — and adults — will adore this book. It kept me up half the night.
What a difference two years make. Journalist Anna Carey’s debut shares some aspects in common with And By The Way. Rebecca Rafferty has two best friends. She has a famous parent; in this case, a mum who’s a popular novelist. But Rebecca Rafferty is just 14. An awkward, in-between age; an age spent hating her embarrassing parents and fancying boys from afar. And home, for Rebecca, is a three-bedded house in Drumcondra.
Rebecca has never liked being the daughter of an author. She cringes each time the new English teacher at her all-girls school brings it up. Which is every two minutes, it seems. But when her mother turns her hand to teenage fiction, and says that she was inspired by Rebecca, and her sister Rachel’s antics, her resentment knows no bounds. She’s mortified.
The Real Rebecca charts a term in Rebecca’s life; a term when she is determined to show that she is not like Ruthie, the soppy heroine of her mother’s book.
She’s equally resolute at spurning the efforts of a rich classmate, who wants her to be the star guest at a televised party extravaganza.
Meanwhile, she lives for Fridays. That’s the day ‘paperboy’ calls for his money. He’s gorgeous. Rebecca spends hours lying in her room thinking about him. Will he ever make a move?
When she’s lent some drums, and forms a girl band, nobody takes her seriously. But might she just make a success of it, at the battle of the bands?
Anna Carey played in several bands, so she knows the scene. She’s got Rebecca’s voice spot on, too.
Written as a diary, this one is aimed at the pre-teen. And they’re sure to love it.
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, March 05, 2011
MARY SHINE THOMPSON
TEEN FICTION: HOSTILITY, SHAME and self-loathing too often thrive in teen social scenes. Adolescent inclusion codes can bewilder adults and youngsters alike, and cliques can be as savage as shoals of sharks.
Recent adult novels about teenagers in Dublin, such as Paul Murray’s Skippy Dies and Kevin Power’s factional Bad Day in Blackrock, highlight just how bruising, even pathological, their networks can be.
Now two fresh names to young people’s fiction refashion contemporary emotional kaleidoscopes into teen chick lit, a category of writing with its own conventions. Both novels are set in Dublin: the cast of Denise Deegan’s And By the Way . . . A Butterfly Novel (Hachette Books Ireland, 329pp, €7.99) lives along the southern Dart line, and the story draws on the affluent stereotypes associated with the area; in Anna Carey’s The Real Rebecca (O’Brien Press, 256pp, €7.99), the characters inhabit the more pedestrian and Dartless Drumcondra.
Neither writer is a novice. Carey is a freelance journalist whose work is familiar from the national dailies, including these pages, and Deegan already has several adult novels to her credit. Their skill shows in their deft handling of plot and in their characters’ credible responses to their teen emotional crises. In particular, both writers have considerable insight into the minefields of adolescent friendships and know how to keep the pages turning.
And By the Way traces the fortunes of Alex. She’s one of the “Kids Of. Kids of diplomats, media stars, musicians, artists, actors, oh, and wealthy people” who attend Strandbrook College. When her mum dies, she and Rockstar, her dad, lock away their emotions. He submerges himself in his work, she in a lather of self-pity. Alex cannot forgive Rockstar for abandoning her mother on her deathbed, and, to ensure she’s never hurt again, she refuses to reach out to anyone; not to her best friend Rachel, not to heart-throb David and certainly not to Rockstar. From moping in bed through burgeoning first love, through tiffs with girlfriends and a transition-year work placement, slowly and plausibly over more than 300 pages, Alex imperceptibly discards her armour. Of course there are setbacks: father and daughter indulge in loveless fumblings with their respective ill-chosen partners, Alex deceives her utterly decent work-placement boss and almost causes her loyal bodyguard to be fired.
Deegan’s great gift is her ability to show similarities between father and daughter’s behaviour in parallel but quite different subplots. It transpires that Rockstar could not face up to losing his wife, just as Alex cannot deal with David’s departure. There may be messages here, but there is no preachiness. Deegan knows when less is more.
And By the Way is one lively page-turner, and Carey’s The Real Rebecca is another. This is a funny, light-hearted romp. Rebecca breathlessly records her zigzagging emotions in her diary, and her garrulous, melodramatic delivery makes for a great read: almost every day is the worst of her life. Her mum lets the side down by writing a teen novel in which – horrors! – a character bears a resemblance to our narrator and her sister. Schoolmates, with “Karen Bitchface Rodgers” leading the offensive, refuse to distinguish between fact and fiction. They seize on the passing resemblance, use it as a weapon and mercilessly bludgeon Rebecca with it. She, in turn, wreaks revenge on her mother, who is trying to balance the family budget with her income from her stories. Self-absorbed Rebecca may be, but she does get on with life. Performing as a drummer in a battle of the bands competition underlines her difference from her mother’s fictional characters.
Then there’s Paperboy: through a series of almost monosyllabic mumbles, teenage love blossoms. In Rebecca’s dreams they are practically engaged. Carey’s observation of adolescent self-absorption and uncertainty is sure and precise. Deegan’s second Butterfly novel is on its way. I predict that we will also see more of Carey’s Rebecca very soon.
Mary Shine Thompson is former dean of St Patrick’s College Drumcondra, a college of Dublin City University
And By the Way Reviews
Smells like teen spirit
Saturday, March 05, 2011
THERE’S been a surge of teenage fiction by established Irish authors of late. And it seems a natural diversion for Denise Deegan, who has published four well-received novels for adults.
Those stories, featuring families in crisis, showed that she has an ear tuned in to the voices of children.
Alex is 16. She’s attractive, confident and popular. Daughter of a famous rock star, she attends a sought-after, south Dublin co-ed school, along with other children of the famous.
Life was good, until her mother died. But now her world has fallen apart.
She’s lost her father to work. Worst of all, she’s lost her trust in just about everything. She can’t confide in her two closest friends; she can’t stand the publicist, the cook and the entourage who surround ‘the Rockstar’. She stops captaining the hockey team, and rejects the advances of the American surfing dude, David McFadden.
David wants to help; his own mother died, but Alex can’t forgive him for being happy. The only person she can talk to is her feisty grandmother. Oh, and her beloved dog, Homer; a retriever who won’t retrieve.
When David rescues Alex from a lecherous guy at a party, she softens towards him. And soon their romance is in full flow. Then, he announces he’s going back to the States, and Alex’s world crumbles again. Will she learn to survive?
This is a gem of a book; intriguing, deep and thoughtful. Alex is a feisty heroine, and her voice rings strong and true.
It’s fun entering the world of the privileged teen, with their credit cards, fake tans and less-affluent friends. Teenagers — and adults — will adore this book. It kept me up half the night.
What a difference two years make. Journalist Anna Carey’s debut shares some aspects in common with And By The Way. Rebecca Rafferty has two best friends. She has a famous parent; in this case, a mum who’s a popular novelist. But Rebecca Rafferty is just 14. An awkward, in-between age; an age spent hating her embarrassing parents and fancying boys from afar. And home, for Rebecca, is a three-bedded house in Drumcondra.
Rebecca has never liked being the daughter of an author. She cringes each time the new English teacher at her all-girls school brings it up. Which is every two minutes, it seems. But when her mother turns her hand to teenage fiction, and says that she was inspired by Rebecca, and her sister Rachel’s antics, her resentment knows no bounds. She’s mortified.
The Real Rebecca charts a term in Rebecca’s life; a term when she is determined to show that she is not like Ruthie, the soppy heroine of her mother’s book.
She’s equally resolute at spurning the efforts of a rich classmate, who wants her to be the star guest at a televised party extravaganza.
Meanwhile, she lives for Fridays. That’s the day ‘paperboy’ calls for his money. He’s gorgeous. Rebecca spends hours lying in her room thinking about him. Will he ever make a move?
When she’s lent some drums, and forms a girl band, nobody takes her seriously. But might she just make a success of it, at the battle of the bands?
Anna Carey played in several bands, so she knows the scene. She’s got Rebecca’s voice spot on, too.
Written as a diary, this one is aimed at the pre-teen. And they’re sure to love it.
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, March 05, 2011
Inside the mind of a teenage girl
MARY SHINE THOMPSON
TEEN FICTION: HOSTILITY, SHAME and self-loathing too often thrive in teen social scenes. Adolescent inclusion codes can bewilder adults and youngsters alike, and cliques can be as savage as shoals of sharks.
Recent adult novels about teenagers in Dublin, such as Paul Murray’s Skippy Dies and Kevin Power’s factional Bad Day in Blackrock, highlight just how bruising, even pathological, their networks can be.
Now two fresh names to young people’s fiction refashion contemporary emotional kaleidoscopes into teen chick lit, a category of writing with its own conventions. Both novels are set in Dublin: the cast of Denise Deegan’s And By the Way . . . A Butterfly Novel (Hachette Books Ireland, 329pp, €7.99) lives along the southern Dart line, and the story draws on the affluent stereotypes associated with the area; in Anna Carey’s The Real Rebecca (O’Brien Press, 256pp, €7.99), the characters inhabit the more pedestrian and Dartless Drumcondra.
Neither writer is a novice. Carey is a freelance journalist whose work is familiar from the national dailies, including these pages, and Deegan already has several adult novels to her credit. Their skill shows in their deft handling of plot and in their characters’ credible responses to their teen emotional crises. In particular, both writers have considerable insight into the minefields of adolescent friendships and know how to keep the pages turning.
And By the Way traces the fortunes of Alex. She’s one of the “Kids Of. Kids of diplomats, media stars, musicians, artists, actors, oh, and wealthy people” who attend Strandbrook College. When her mum dies, she and Rockstar, her dad, lock away their emotions. He submerges himself in his work, she in a lather of self-pity. Alex cannot forgive Rockstar for abandoning her mother on her deathbed, and, to ensure she’s never hurt again, she refuses to reach out to anyone; not to her best friend Rachel, not to heart-throb David and certainly not to Rockstar. From moping in bed through burgeoning first love, through tiffs with girlfriends and a transition-year work placement, slowly and plausibly over more than 300 pages, Alex imperceptibly discards her armour. Of course there are setbacks: father and daughter indulge in loveless fumblings with their respective ill-chosen partners, Alex deceives her utterly decent work-placement boss and almost causes her loyal bodyguard to be fired.
Deegan’s great gift is her ability to show similarities between father and daughter’s behaviour in parallel but quite different subplots. It transpires that Rockstar could not face up to losing his wife, just as Alex cannot deal with David’s departure. There may be messages here, but there is no preachiness. Deegan knows when less is more.
And By the Way is one lively page-turner, and Carey’s The Real Rebecca is another. This is a funny, light-hearted romp. Rebecca breathlessly records her zigzagging emotions in her diary, and her garrulous, melodramatic delivery makes for a great read: almost every day is the worst of her life. Her mum lets the side down by writing a teen novel in which – horrors! – a character bears a resemblance to our narrator and her sister. Schoolmates, with “Karen Bitchface Rodgers” leading the offensive, refuse to distinguish between fact and fiction. They seize on the passing resemblance, use it as a weapon and mercilessly bludgeon Rebecca with it. She, in turn, wreaks revenge on her mother, who is trying to balance the family budget with her income from her stories. Self-absorbed Rebecca may be, but she does get on with life. Performing as a drummer in a battle of the bands competition underlines her difference from her mother’s fictional characters.
Then there’s Paperboy: through a series of almost monosyllabic mumbles, teenage love blossoms. In Rebecca’s dreams they are practically engaged. Carey’s observation of adolescent self-absorption and uncertainty is sure and precise. Deegan’s second Butterfly novel is on its way. I predict that we will also see more of Carey’s Rebecca very soon.
Mary Shine Thompson is former dean of St Patrick’s College Drumcondra, a college of Dublin City University