Kim Fahner is a poet, an essayist, and a playwright. She’s also publishes book reviews on what seems to be a weekly basis! She teaches high school full time, too. I don’t know how she manages to be so productive.
The Donoghue Girl is Kim’s first novel. It’s a historical novel, set mostly around Sudbury (where Kim lives) between 1938 and 1940. It tells a story about a family, the Donoghues, who live above a general store in a village called Creighton Mine. That family has one son, Jack, and four daughters; as I began reading, I wondered which of those daughters was “the” Donoghue girl of the book’s title. That definite article got me curious. It doesn’t refer to Nellie, the daughter who is in a convent, preparing to take holy orders, because we never see her. It can’t suggest Maisie, because she’s a relatively minor character. It could be Ann, the oldest sister, who is the narrative focus of some of the early chapters, but she shares that position with Lizzie and an outsider to the family, Michael Power, who works at the nickel mine in the village. I’m not going to spoil anything here, but as the book continues, it becomes clear that the title refers to Lizzie. She’s the protagonist.
My questions about the novel’s title aren’t a criticism. They’re an example of how the book uses the phenomenon that the French literary critic Roland Barthes called “the hermeneutic code,” the aspect of narrative that generates questions that readers want answered, mysteries they want solved. Of course, the only way to answer those questions or solve those mysteries is to keep reading. The hermeneutic code propels us through the narrative; it keeps us engaged. And it’s hard at work in The Donoghue Girl. As I read, I kept asking myself: what’s going to happen next? Surprise followed surprise. Characters developed in ways that took me off guard. Events were unpredictable. It was all much like life itself–things happen we don’t anticipate. We know from the time period that war looms on the horizon, but it comes into the story in surprising ways. And while we might be expecting, or hoping for, a love story, that desire, and desire itself, becomes complicated as the story progresses.
One of the blurbs on the novel’s back cover refers to its consideration of “binding gender roles,” and that’s definitely one of The Donoghue Girl‘s main themes. The women in the story work within the limitations imposed on them, or struggle against those restrictions. In a different way, the men do, too. We learn about the trauma of one of the male characters, and the way that trauma shapes his surprising weaknesses. At least, that’s how I understood him. I could be wrong. His behaviour is unacceptable, yes, but Fahner is generous in showing us why he acts that way.
I’m trying not to give away any spoilers here, because Kim is a friend, and I want you to read her book. I thought the writing was lovely, something that doesn’t surprise me at all, given her poetry and essays. Take this paragraph from the middle of The Donoghue Girl as evidence:
Long after everyone else had gone in, turned from waving down the road, Lizzie stood there, solitary, her arms wrapped around her waist, as if to gather herself in so that she wouldn’t fall apart into a million pieces. Tears ran down her face, drying there in the late spring breeze, as she stood watching down the dirt road, until the bright glint of sunlight on the car’s back bumper sent a streak of silver across her eyes, until she knew he had moved away from her.
I wish I could write like that.
I’d say more about this book, but the morning is progressing, and I need to gather myself together for the day. I’m glad, though, that I couldn’t sleep last night, because I got up, lay on the living room sofa, and finished The Donoghue Girl. Right now, I’m willing to trade sleep for a good book. Sleep won’t come to me anyway, so I’d better make the best of things.