When I saw Catherine Airey’s Confessions (1.14.25 Mariner Books) being compared to The Goldfinch, I groaned. I’m serious. I audibly groaned. I think The Goldfinch is one of the more overrated novels of my time, and I still hold the opinion that the story deserved to have someone different tell it, someone with a less pretentious style and more likeable characters. I’m pleased to say other than art, terrorism and drugs factoring heavily, the comparison is unfair. It’s sweeter, softer and more I’d say it’s more Jonathan Safran Foer meets Louise Kennedy meets The Rachel Incident, and with those comparisons in mind, it’s no wonder I loved it.
The novel is unapologetically a series of puzzle pieces, working together to a satisfying though far from neat conclusion. It opens with Cora in New York in 2001. Her father works at the World Trade Center. Her mother has died by suicide. She’s a lost teen trying to find something to ground her – whether that’s with Kyle or drugs or both, she wants to be hollow and full at the same time. She is unmoored. Then 9/11 strikes and she finds herself an orphan. She receives a letter from Roisin, an aunt she didn’t know existed.
The novel then thrusts us back to 1974 where Roisin lives in her older sister’s shadow, craving her light and affection. Maire is a talented artist, and Roisin conspires with her sister’s boyfriend to get her into an artistic residency of sorts at the old schoolhouse that had longed served as the muse for both sisters. Perhaps this moment is when everything changed.
On the heels of Roisin’s section, we return to New York in 1979 with Maire and follow along as madness and brokenness bleed on the canvas. She is unmoored. Alone. Floundering. A blink, and we’re back in Ireland, where Roisin is trying to ground herself without her sister, to find purpose and love. The distance between the two sisters a screaming abyss.
The last third of the book brings us to 2018 with Lyca, Cora’s daughter, and takes to both Ireland and New York as the pieces of the puzzle slowly fall into place. The broken, jagged, infected pieces of the puzzle.
It’s a beautiful novel of sisterhood and secrets, with sparks of madness and imagination. Framed by Scream School, a “choose your own adventure” computer game about two sisters trying to escape a boarding school in County Donegal, the unique novel digs deep into the relationship between Roisin and Maire and the choices neither sister could change. It’s soft and heartbreaking and raw.
Read this book.
A huge thanks to the publisher for this advanced copy.
*I did note one British-ism that showed up in a New York hospital that hopefully was corrected prior to the final version as it was entirely out of place based on location and character speaking. (Theatre was used instead of operating room.)
A Girl Named Tommi 