The Coast Road - Alan Murrin - ★★★★

AUTHOR: Alan Murrin

GENRE: Irish Literary Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: June 4, 2024

RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: A literary fiction set in 1994 Ireland, when divorce wasn’t legally allowed. Interesting and layered characters, many points to ponder upon. A strong debut.

Plot Preview:

County Donegal, 1994.

Izzy, who is married to a local politician since many years, isn’t content with her life and her husband’s parochial attitude. She whiles her time by staying active in multiple activities, but she wonders if she should separate from her husband to liven up her life.

Colette left her husband and her sons some years ago to live with a married man in Dublin. Now she’s back, but her family no longer wants her. She rents a house by the coast road, while planning to earn some money through writing classes as well as trying to reconnect with her sons.

Dolores, married with three kids and pregnant with a fourth, knows that her husband cheats on her. But with limited options, she ignores his infidelity as much as she can. When she rents out the cottage on their property to Colette, little does she imagine what would happen next.

The story comes to us from the third person perspectives of multiple characters, including the above three women.

Bookish Yays:

✔ The characters: complicated, flawed, human. Can’t understand whether to root for them or not. Loved the nuanced depiction.

✔ Father Brian: When I saw the priest mentioned in this Irish work, I thought the story would go the typical way. But Fr. Brian is an interestingly complex character. Also, the approach towards organised religion and some of its control freaks is kept realistic and balanced.

✔ The writing approach: The initial chapters are somewhat episodic, with the narrative view point going from character to character. Helps us to know each of the key people well. Perfect approach for a character-oriented story.

✔ The setting: A small Irish town where everyone knows all the affairs of their neighbours, and yet, they don’t know the truth. Works excellently for such an intimate story. The coastal location is also incorporated well into the narrative.

✔ The Irish connection: Great representation of the 1990s social, political, and religious scene in Ireland.

✔ The lyrical writing, bringing depth to the town, the coast road and the humans equally well.

✔ The focus on the divorce referendum: As divorce was not legally allowed in Ireland till the mid-1990s, the only options available for women who suffered in their marriages were silence or separation. As expected, only women bear the repercussions of such a restrictive policy. The plot highlights the plight of many such women.

✔ The other themes, especially the sexist behaviour, the small-town tendency to gossip, the pressure on the women to stay thin and attractive for their husbands, and the scorn towards independent women, are equally powerfully depicted. I also enjoyed glimpses of Collette’s writing class.

✔ Three strong yet brittle female characters, written by a debut male author who does justice to their emotions without once succumbing to #MenWritingWomen tropes. Love how the women aren’t glorified or condemned for their choices. Rather, the plot lets us decide for ourselves what we want to feel about them.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

⚠ The pace is quite slow. As this is literary fiction, a slower tempo is the norm, but this one gets a tad too sluggish in between, making us feel as restricted as the women in the story.

Bookish Nays:

❌ The last quarter somehow doesn't hit the mark, I wish I could pinpoint why. It was not bad, but also not as impactful as the rest of the book. It felt unhinged somehow.

❌ There is not a single healthy marriage in the entire story. I wish the representation of marriage had been slightly more balanced, even if the plot required only the flip side of marital unions.

❌ The author's note is too brief. I'd have loved to know more about the divorce referendum and what happened next. But it hardly covers any of the history.

All in all, this is a satisfying debut, focussed on an important referendum of recent Irish history, and indirectly depicting why it was needed. Though the last section went a bit haywire, I still liked the book for its true-to-life portrayal of human emotions and fickleness.

For a debut work, the book aims high and hits much of the target without succumbing to the dreaded “kitchen sink syndrome’ by overloading themes. As is common in literary fiction, the story is somewhat sad, though the writing never feels like it is piling on the misery for maximum effect.

Definitely recommended to literary fiction lovers who love character-oriented fiction set around actual historical events.

My thanks to HarperVia and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Coast Road”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.