When the story first begins, our protagonist, Libby (14), is in a car, sitting in the back with Thomas (18) her older brother, and Ellen (12) her younger sister in the middle. Her mum, Faye, is driving, and eldest sister Marie (19) is in the front seat. Beatrice (7), their half-sister and beloved baby of the family, is lying ‘way back’ in the car. It is a mark of what a skilful writer Mannion is, that very swiftly, the 5 children take on such distinctive characters one never needs to worry about telling them apart, and the cast keeps growing, but it is marvellously easy to keep track of all the characters, so well are they introduced and developed.
It is hard at first to put one’s finger on just why this book reads so well. One key point is definitely how easily one identifies with Libby, who is endearing for all that she hugs secrets to herself. This is not a YA novel, but there is an excellent study and depiction of a 14 year old’s psyche; giving us glimpses of a teenager who is bright but not precociously so, who is not particularly good at communicating with people, who feels intensely but is not analytical about her emotions, who is very proud and tries to keep up appearances for all her family, who knows she is flawed but does not let them affect her agency or self-esteem. One feels one almost wants to handle this prickly, sensitive young person with kid gloves, because the way Mannion reveals her to us, Libby is both touching and too fragile to touch.
It is both Libby’s strength and vulnerability that she cares so deeply about her family.
‘The Worrier,’ Gwen had called me. It was true. I worried about everything.
p20
So when that night, driving home, Ellen upsets their mother, who throws her out of the car and leaves her 8 or 9 miles from home, in the dark, Libby worries and worries. She very much mothers her younger sisters, particularly as their mother does not seem particularly maternal. Moreover, it is not only Libby who looks out for her siblings; all the siblings, although there is some normal squabbling, seem very close-knit, to understand each other, to cover for each other, and to care deeply for one another.
The 4 older ones clearly miss their father very much, who was estranged and divorced from their mother already by the time he died, but whom they clearly feel as a great loss. Throughout the book, their absent father looms large in the Gallagher children’s identity. They vividly remember working with him, going to his home in Ireland with him, how his gifts were chosen so carefully to suit each of their interests, which he encouraged. Libby loves trees, but as Mannion so beautifully captures about children, sometimes it is not entirely clear where the beginning of loves come from, whether they develop their loves spontaneously or because encouraged:
“I don’t know if I spent so much time with trees because I loved them or because of how much he loved me loving them, and I cannot separate those things”
p5
And now their father is gone, there are regrets, at not having his love and support, but also at not having been more communicative,
“’I wish I could tell him he was a good father,’ said Thomas. ‘I don’t think he knew.’ I felt the same.
p231
However, Gallaghers do much not speak of such things.
Sage was able to say these things, to compliment. Charlotte did it too. In my family, we didn’t know how to do that, saying those good things to each other. I think our faces would have contorted and our sentences fallen apart if we tried.
p201
And this perhaps is one of the reasons this book works so beautifully – because its protagonists do not directly speak their feelings, there is a lot of showing, and not too much telling. In fact, the showing is beautifully done, as the characters work to conceal their feelings but keep revealing themselves rather poignantly. It is as if feelings are the soft underbelly for the Gallagher family, which must not be exposed less vulnerability is also exposed.
The Gallaghers live on Valley Forge Mountain, near Phoenixville, on the less affluent side. Their house is actually built on the mountain-side, and clearly the children are not urban kids; Libby, for instance, knows her forest very well, and has hide outs (the Kingdom) that she shares with her best friend, Sage, and an intimate knowledge of the trails and lands around her home. This landscape very much shapes their lives, and the texture of this narrative. (It is also lovely that Mannion clearly is drawing from her own intimate knowledge of these very spaces where she sites her novel; she was born in Philadelphia, and now lives in Ireland. She has written with exceptional evocative power of both these landscapes.)
The story continues to unfold from the fall-out of Ellen’s attempting to hitch hike home that night after her mother threw her out of the car, with ramifications far beyond that which Libby had imagined. The pace is excellent, the control of the plot very well handled, giving the reader time to take in the tiniest details as Libby sees them, but also keeping the storyline moving swiftly. The quiet heroism of these young people trying to cope with whatever life throws at them is what warms the story throughout. They are just ordinary children, not deprived but not particularly affluent either, with normal opportunities and fears, living in a fairly supportive and kindly community, but each with their personal struggles and tribulations. The beauty of the Gallaghers lie in the fierceness of their loyalty to each other, and the strength they unthinkingly draw from this. And the beauty of Mannion’s writing is that she can make so precious and distinctive the seemingly ordinary and commonplace. It is hard to remember this is a debut novel, so accomplished and masterfully understated as it is. I cannot wait for Mannion’s next.
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