Book Review: Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
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About the book
It’s 1990 in London and, after the death of a young girl on an estate, the finger of suspicion is pointing at one reclusive Irish family: the Greens.
At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, other-worldly, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life – and love – got in her way.
Now, as the scandal unfolds and the tabloids hunt their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations.
Why we love it
This multi-perspective novel tells the story of Tom, an ambitious tabloid journalist looking for his next big scoop, and Carmel Green, a young mother, originally from Ireland and now living on a London housing estate with her parents and brother.
When a toddler goes missing on the estate, local gossip leads to suspicion of 10 year old Lucy, Carmel's daughter, and it's a scandal which Tom is eager to exploit for his newspaper.
Megan Nolan's intimate portrayal of the Greens, a family divided by secrets, shame, addiction and poverty, forms the heart of the story with their reasons for fleeing Ireland and the events leading up to Lucy's birth told through a series of flashbacks.
So many young girls had their lives and dreams destroyed by the lack of support or empathy for unmarried pregnant women in Ireland and there's a growing number of books, fictional and otherwise, that are starting to tell this part of Irish history. The stories of those shamed into leaving the country for good are an important part of that conversation and Megan Nolan's empathy and compassion for Carmel and her family shines through on every page.
When they move to London, the Greens are completely isolated from those around them, marginalised from society and surviving on casual low-income work and benefits. It makes them an easy scapegoat when tragedy strikes and an easy target for a tabloid hack like Tom when things go desperately wrong.
The casual othering of the family by neighbours, the authorities and the media should feel more shocking, but instead just feels like a timely reminder of how easily society dehumanises and scapegoats the most vulnerable amongst us.
Ordinary Human Failings is powerful and compelling novel that challenges both prejudice and the superficiality of modern media and it's definitely a story you'll remember next time you turn on the news or pick up a paper.
