They Told Her So, But She Didn’t Listen
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This Booker Prize winning novel tells the story of the Stack family, Larry and Eilish and their four children. Eilish is a microbiologist, and Larry is the Deputy General Secretary of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland. They have three teen-ager-ish kids. Mark, Molly, and Bailey – ages 16, 14, and 12 respectively – and Ben is an infant.
The book is set in Dublin in a dystopian near-future. The far-right National Alliance Party (NAP) has seized control of Ireland, and have put “Emergency Powers” in place. This has suspended the Irish constitution.
The opening line of the book is ominous even though we don’t yet know about the political situation: “The night has come and she has not heard the knocking…” Upon answering the door, Eilish finds two officers from the newly formed secret police, the Garda National Services Bureau (GNSB). They want to talk with Larry. Next thing you know, he is being detained, and then he is a political prisoner. Ultimately, he disappears.
Adding to Eilish’s problems are two other male figures. Her elderly father, Simon, lives across town – alone – and is sinking into dementia. And her son, Mark, is problematic too. He wants to join the rebel forces trying to overthrow NAP. Before he can do that, he is called up for military service. When he and other young men refuse to join NAP, they go into hiding, and the government promptly lists all their names and addresses in the newspaper, turning them and their families into targets.
At this point, Simon has one of his moments of clarity and tells Eilish it is time for her to act! Before the government tightens the border! She needs to get the children out of Ireland! She needs to go to England, or to her sister in Canada!
Simon is not the first – or the last to tell her this – but Eilish is steadfast in staying put. Out of the mouth of babes, Molly tells her too. As does Eilish’s sister Aine, who warns, “History is a silent record of people who did not know when to leave.”
But beyond having passport issues for a couple of the kids, she has money issues, she does not know where Mark is hiding in order to bring him along, she does not know how to maneuver her dad and the other kids on such a journey, and she wants to wait in place for what she hopes is Larry’s ultimate return. It’s simply not possible for her to act!
Suffice it to say that all hell breaks loose as she tries to wait things out.
This was frightening in many ways. It was frightening because I cared about the characters, but also because political turmoil is such in the United States that I have to wonder if a similar thing could happen here? And if it did, would I know when to leave and have the courage to do so?
These are the questions that worried me into the night as I read this book. And please note that the fate of the family is in question until the very last page, which keeps the tension constant from the first line until the last.
And speaking of the first line, here it is again. I read it literally the first time, not so now: “The night [had] come and she [had] not heard the knocking.”
Woe be to Eilish’s family. She had not heard the knocking…
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