August, 26th,
2007
Reviewed by Siobhan Cassidy
Stellar Take of Modern Dysfunctional Irish Life
Denise Deegan's fourth novel confirms her as a writer of insight and empathy. It is a delight: a ripping, page-turning tale of modern Ireland.
She explores the distant relationship between dutiful son, Rory and his prickly father, which has had a devastating effect on his life. The author makes no judgements on the hopeless relationship and feels no need to slap on a sugary end.
As doctor-on-call, Rory is attacked with a syringe. Inevitably, he confronts his morality, and his moribund paternal instinct is duly awakened. His sassy partner, Louise, meets this new need for a baby with dread. But Rory's broodiness is no gimmick to balance a plot on. Deegan gets right under his skin and, through his eyes, our ride through family life is unfailingly human and enlightening.
The theme of isolation runs thick through this novel, with the next generation of dysfunctionals brilliantly depicted through wayward teen, Jenna and foster child Jason. Deegan displays a fine social conscience in Jason's story and his drug-addicted mother.
This is a stellar effort and her best book yet.
Saturday, 1st September 2007
Reviewed by Mairead Byrne
Rory and Louise are familiar figures to observers of our recently prosperous country. He is a young doctor, rather more in fact, a registrar and aspiring neurologist. Louise runs her own business, she is a driven and talented florist with an on-trend taste for amaryllis and lillies and contempt for supermarket bouquets.
So far so good in Denise Deegan's fourth novel, but as in her previous books, there are dark undercurrents. Rory is attacked late at night by a junkie after visiting a patient and in an instant his whole perspective changes.
Their dinky lifestyle no longer fulfills him and suddenly he is seized with the desire for fatherhood. But what about Louise, she has very good reasons for not wanting to become a mother and dreads telling Rory so. This is a very contemporary story that encompasses many of the concerns of people in our own so frequently dislocated society. Deegan is at the more serious end of the popular fiction spectrum and treats her characters with intelligence and sensitivity. But she also keeps her readers on the edge of their seats. A gripping read that is uplifting and perceptive - a book to savour.
Saturday, 29th September 2007
Reviewed by Sue Leonard
Rory is a happy man. A Dublin doctor, he lives a carefree existence with his girlfriend Louise. Neither wants commitment. Until, that is, Rory is mugged with a syringe - and starts to reassess his lifestyle.
Suffering post traumatic stress, he starts to see his family; to bond with his sister-in-law's foster child, and to want a child of his own. This becomes an obsession. But where does that leave Louise?
In Deegan's first two novels she played safe. She dealt with a single issue, but in her third, she began to flex her muscles. 'Love Comes Tumbling' looked at step children; at sibling rivalry and at deeper, psychological concerns.
In Do You Want What I Want?, she pushes the boundaries further still. She paints a credible picture of life in noughties Dublin; where the property boom sparks difficulties and where choices for women are seen to complicate already complex lives.
Deegan's portrait, this time, extends to Rory's friends, and to his extended family. There's his father; the doctor who has always been disapproving of his children; there's his gentle mother; there's Siofra, a happy wife and mum who has to move to commuter land to gain more space. And there's Owen, who left Orla for a younger, more glamorous model.
That Deegan has told their stories through Rory - and recounted the novel from his point of view is to her credit. His transformation from self-obsessed man about town to a more rounded human feels plausible. She's also taken care with the plotting; there are plenty of twists along the way to keep us guessing.
In all, this is a well-written, poignant book about life in Dublin today. At the top end of the women's fiction genre, Deegan improves with every outing. In the past I have found her endings clunky, but this time she left me entirely satisfied. Read it.
9th September 2007
Keep it short and straight and keep it (fairly) clean
These two chick-lit novels tell a story in contrasting styles, says Sile McArdle
It would be hard to find two more different reads than Denise Deegan's fourth novel, Do You Want What I Want?, and Freya North's ninth, Pillow Talk. For, even though they are both examples of well-written chick-lit, one book is so detailed that the accumulation of facts detracts from the book's many good points; the other rips the plaster off so quickly at times that this reader was left wishing for more detail in order to regroup before the next wallop.
It is Pillow Talk that is far too long, with its depiction of the travails of the aptly named Petra Flint, a talented but insecure jeweller, towards and through her adult romance with her one-time teenage boyband boyfriend, Arlo Savidge; though cleverly evoked in many places, it is information top-heavy to the cusp of irritation.
And it is Do You Want What I Want? by complete contrast, which is so sparsely written, particularly towards the end when Denise Deegan adroitly smashes the plot from one trauma to another, that you will want more time - and more pages - to absorb each new twist before the next kicks in. No irritants here, more likely a plea for mercy. Which, if that is what the author intended, is a skill to be reckoned with.
Interestingly, Deegan has been brave enough to place a man centre-stage in this novel. And - insofar as this female reviewer can tell - she does so extremely credibly. Rory Fenton, a rugby-loving South Dublin doctor from a middle-class background with a raft of family issues and a lovely girlfriend, is a down-to-earth decent bloke whose persona will resonate with many readers (the author has, thankfully, avoided turning him into the snobbish, collar-turned up cliché).
Life has been pretty good to Rory - although his relationship with his father has already been fraught - until one day he is filling in as a doctor on call for his best friend, Barry, and he is attacked. This unwelcome catalyst makes Rory examine his life, especially his attitude to fatherhood. He decides he wants a child, but his girlfriend, Louise, an unwanted baby herself, is building up her flower-shop business and is unsure if she can ever commit to motherhood.
Although this is the central strand to Do You Want What I Want?, there are so many other endearing ones, mainly revolving around Rory's renewed interest in his own family after that fateful assault. There is his gentle encouragement of his down-trodden mother, for starters, and his genuine concern for his sister-in-law, Orla, after her husband's callous defection for a younger woman. There is his affection for his teenage niece, Jenna, and his awkward but worthwhile mentoring of Orla's foster child, Jason.
Of note, too, is the fact that Do You Want What I Want? never decends into jargon, despite the medical context of its main character, his family and friends, and the dramatic final act and finale.
Of greater note is that, unlike many books in this genre where you know what's coming but enjoy the read anyway, Deegan has created two, possibly even three, contenders for Rory's heart; her poignant ending seems utterly natural, but there is the sneaking feeling that the outcome could easily have been quite different - and still natural.
Pillow Talk, on the other hand, is only ever going in one direction - and takes an age to get there. After finding her selfish boyfriend in bed with a colleague, too-soft Petra ricochets from her claustrophobic London flat to the wilds of north Yorkshire to lick her wounds. There, she bumps into childhood sweetheart Arlo, aptly enough, in a sweetshop. Arlo is nursing his own, far deeper heartbreak, and has shut himself away from life and love to teach music in an exclusive boys' school.
Most of the numerous subplots in Pillow Talk are engaging: Petra's close-knit Studio Three, the quirky designers with whom she works; her bizarre sleepwalking habits; her off-hand divorced parents, who were never interested in her; Lillian McNeil, the elderly lady who kept the teenage Petra sane and became the force that would shape her dreams for life.
No, Pillow Talk is not a bad book, by any means, just far too drawn-out (Arlo and Petra's well-flagged reunion, for instance, does not happen until a third of the way in). The talented Freya North obviously has a keen sense of attention to detail, but it is overused here.
The other matter that jars in Pillow Talk is the crude language that North uses to depict sex, particularly the one-night stand between Arlo and Miranda, the colleague who took advantage of Arlo's reawkening senses after he met Petra once more. The interlude itself was coarse, but the writing - elsewhere elegant yet earthy when required - need not have been.
All in all, the lesson from Pillow Talk - illustrated to gut-wrenching effect in Do You Want What I Want? - is that less is more.
10th November 2007
Reviewed by Lucille Redmond
Plenty of Twists and Turns to Keep the Heart Beating
Another illness-mediated story from Denise Deegan whose unfortunate characters have been struck by everything from leukaemia to bipolar depression. This time its AIDS, or the suspicion of it, as young doctor Rory is attacked by a needle-jabbing addict as he makes a visit in a rough Dun Laoghaire flat block.
As Rory faces the prospect of AIDS or hepatitis he takes a deep look at his life and girlfriend Louise and realises that maybe he wants more.
In fact, maybe he wants kids. But Louise doesn't. And so he grows closer to his motherly sister-in-law Orla, abandoned and divorced by Rory's callous brother, who's gone off with a young wan and gelled his hair in search of his inner teenager.
And he wants kids more and more as he becomes involved with Orla's foster-child, whose mother has overdosed and is trying to pull herself back together.
Orla's teenage daughter is hitting the sauce and alcoholism looms.
ER fans will love this, though all the illnesses are starting to look like literary Munchausen by proxy syndrome. It's a story that pulls the reader in, with appealing characters and surprise twists, and a final devastating childbirth - no, not saying whose giving birth here - with plenty of beeping monitors and emergencies.