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There are currently 24 member reviews
for Big Girl, Small Town
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Gail B. (Albuquerque, NM)
A Salt & Battered
How I felt after reading this book If you like: small town gossip, dialect without translation (not sure what a cropil or a gleek or a gurning is), downbeat no-hopers, sex out by the dumpster, you'll love this book.What redeems it are the rare glimpses into happy family relationship, all of which occurred in the past. There hints of mysteries but none resolved. Too bad.
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Jean B. (Naples, FL)
Big Girl, Small Town
When I read the reviews for Bi Girl, Small Town I looked forward to reading it. According to the cover of the book The Guardian called it darkly hilarious and wildly entertaining and the Irish Times labeled it captivating.
However, I found this book profoundly sad. It was also difficult to read because it was written with a heavy Ulster slang. Majella, the main character, leads a truly dreadful life with a selfish, demanding, drunken mother and a boring job, enlivened only occasionally with sex (not involving love or even attraction) with her co-worker. There are graphic descriptions of totally un-loving sex, bathroom visits, and female monthly problems. The only humor I found was in the names of the chip shops: A Salt and Battered and The Cod Father. Perhaps if I hadn't read reviews expecting humor I might not have been as critical of this book.
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Betsey V. (Austin, TX)
Not my cuppa
I have been particularly drawn to Irish authors such as Anne Enright and Sally Rooney, and I looked forward to Michelle Gallen's debut. She notably portrays a provincial Irish village, rendering her characters with painfully honest and detailed definition, complete with the local patois and ethos. The tension between Catholics and Protestants is fully on display, as the story takes place not long after the Troubles ended. Gallen is obviously talented and insightful, but I regretfully had to force myself to finish it. The author was purposely redundant to make a thematic point of a woman stuck in a static town with backward customs. Unfortunately for me, it backfired and became a series of Groundhog Days, page after implacable page, chapter after intractable chapter, with a plodding, punishing plot.
Majella, the pudgy 27 year-old protagonist, possesses dormant intelligence and questionable personal hygiene habits, but prefers a spotless environment. Her compulsive tics point to the autism spectrum, although it isn't specifically stated. She's worked at the local fish 'n chip shop for nine years, and occasionally has sex in the storeroom with her married co-worker. Her dad disappeared when she was a child, never to be found, and presumed dead by many. This trauma disturbs Majella's life, soils her outlook, and sustains her stagnation.
Majella supports her insufferable, somatic and alcoholic mother, who stays home to drink, smoke, and complain. Their house is decaying and their bond is declining. In her free time, Majella makes lists of what she likes—eating, cleaning, Dallas (the TV show), among other things, and what she doesn't like, such as noise, fashion, gossip, and sweating. There are subgroups of each, but it all boils down to not liking "Other People."
Every night, Majella returns home with fried food from work, microwaves it, and tucks herself in bed to watch old episodes of Dallas, or lies there in confounding displeasure, eating. Periodically, she intervenes in her mother's attention-seeking and self-destructive behaviors. Occasionally, Majella takes the hours long journey to visit her beloved granny, her only departure from the recycled days. We know from the opening pages that her granny was recently murdered, and the perp is still unknown. As the narrative alternates time periods, we learn just enough to stay restless.
"Majella didn't understand all this pseudo-secrecy, the stories people told. She liked things straight. But things weren't like that in Aghybogey. It was a town in which there was nowhere to hide, so people hid stuff in plain sight."
Despite the narrative confidence and unique voice of Majella, the daily repetition of circumstance and interactions fell flat for me. Although I acknowledge that the author designed the story to illustrate the quotidian life and unchanging mores of this fictional village in Northern Ireland (near the border of the Irish Republic), it failed to keep me engaged beyond the first few chapters. I powered through, hoping for an intriguing payoff. However, the finale was quickly dispatched and foreseeable.
Despite my lack of enthusiasm, I'll keep an eye out for Gallan's next novel. I appreciate what she achieved, but I'm the wrong audience for this book. She controlled her narrative and gave it the structure she intended, but it left me sluggish and listless. Gallan's talent is indisputable, however, and I'm optimistic about her future work.
