Trouble the Living - Francesca McDonnell Capossela
‘Trouble the living’ by Francesca McDonnell Capossela begins in Co Tyrone in 1997 (Coalisland to be precise), where we find Bríd and Ina Kane doing the normal things that teenage sisters do, whilst a conflict rumbles on in the background. Bríd is a bit more politicised than her younger sister, encouraged by a mother who feels she missed out on contributing to the ‘struggle’ because she got pregnant and married young.
The story then moves to Southern California in 2016, where we meet Bernie, during an active shooter drill in school (a character wearing a balaclava means we don’t feel too far from the north). Bernie’s a teenager who is exploring her sexuality whilst dealing with an over protective mother, and both are about to face challenges that will either bring them closer together or further fracture their fragile relationship. The chapters alternate between the two settings and I'm not going to say anymore on how they are connected - as usual when I start a book, I knew just the general jist of the story, and I think you should do the same. (Is it old fashioned to ignore as much of the blurb as possible?)
I was a bit concerned at the beginning of this book, with mention of a 'Station wagon' and 'candy' but I needed haven't worried because the author did a pretty good job of recreating the nineties in the north of Ireland. It also helped that I’m familiar with places such as the cathedral in Armagh and family life from that period. The Irish chapters in particular have a strong sense of place.
Trauma
I was born in the seventies in South Armagh and brought up during the worst of the troubles, so I'm always looking for authenticity in books that describe those times. It's an era that is soaked into the pores of my skin. This is a very different book from ‘Tresspasses' but I think Francesca McDonnell Capossela does a lot of research, has obviously spent time here and gets a lot of the difficult stuff right.
For example, there’s a part where the family are stopped in their car by a police and army patrol. It really brought back to me that fear, that dread in the pit of your stomach, as my da would slow down and tell us all to be quiet in the back. Looking at the uniforms and insignia to see who it was, some regiments more feared. Trying to spot the young English boys hiding in the hedgerows, fingers on the triggers of machine guns.
Difficult stuff like trauma, such as losing loved ones and taking that hurt and channeling it into revenge. It takes that to fuel a conflict, that never ending loop, but then there's the guilt that comes with that - can you live with what you have done? Falling into cavernous depressions that force you to take to the bed for days. And sometimes you just run out of road.
I’ve often felt that the English should have been required to employ about a thousand counsellors and trauma therapists to deal with the mess they left, as part of the Good Friday agreement. There are so many people still suffering from PTSD.
A few years ago I sat with a man in a bar, who recalled the night he pulled people from the rubble of a non warning car bomb that exploded outside a pub. He was a nurse, and just went into autopilot. When he went home later, washing the blood of his friends and neighbours from his hands, he just broke. More than forty years later with me at the bar, and he was still standing at that sink. (For anyone interested in that period, Lethal Allies by Anne Cadwallader is the book you’re after.)
Back to the book. Guilt at leaving people behind, because you’re worried about being swallowed whole by a place. You also get a sense of the decisions that lead to people feeling they have to protect their community, and I think the author brings this across really well. The pain of being away from home, because there’s a huge part of you still there and you are constantly being pulled back towards it. Reading about events like Brexit, and knowing how disastrous it could be for a peace as delicate as a spiders web.
Mothers and Daughters
The relationship between mothers and daughters form the beating heart of the book - dealing with the expectations of the mother, whilst asserting your own independence. The deep bond between the two sisters also felt very real and moving. I also really liked how family life was captured in the home in Coalisand, that was familiar to me. The different personalities squeezed under one roof, the shifting dynamics. The small, innocent decisions that people took during that period that end up having devastating consequences.
The dual timelines worked really well in telling the story and allowing the author to shift the pace when needed. It was also helped by Bríd, Ina and Bernie being likeable, complicated people that I was fully invested in. The writing itself was evocative, tender when it needed to be and I’m a sucker for incisive and realistic dialogue, which ‘trouble the living’ excelled at.
Really enjoyed this, some difficult themes explored and I cared for these characters. Thanks to Netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy and Leilani Fitzpatrick for getting in touch and recommending ‘Trouble the living’ - I’ll be doing the same.
294 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 5, 2023