Lisa McInerney’s The Glorious Heresies, winner of the 2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, has clear pros for a reader who likes meandering storylines and lots of characters; the reader who prefers brevity, interiority, and simplicity may find a few cons.
The book is indeed, as it says in a blurb, a wild ride. It starts with one character and ends with seven others, spans five years, and goes into intertwining situations each one more complicated than the next. Ryan is 15 and a drug dealer, his father Tony is a wasting alcoholic, Maureen is a feisty 65-year-old unabashedly in search of penance, her son Jimmy is the boss of the city’s criminal underworld, and Georgie is a prostitute with very little to offer. The plot is set up when Maureen accidentally kills Georgie’s boyfriend and calls Jimmy to take care of the body. Jimmy enlists Tony’s help in doing so. Georgie begins to ask questions, and what ensues thereafter is a five-year long whirlwind of drugs, alcohol, sex, bodies, thugs, heartbreak and other such elements.
More than a convoluted storyline, The Glorious Heresies is a solid narrative of those pushed to the very fringes, the forgotten ones, those who do what they have to because, as Ryan says, “You’ve got to be realistic. Someone’s got to do it.” Set in the criminal underworld of Cork, Ireland, it pans around those who actively choose to be involved in it, and those who are thrust in.
It can sometimes become difficult to keep track of just who killed whom, and why, or whose background was which grotesque story and why, which character’s backstory was mixed up with another’s and why, and for this, I give it three stars. But to deny the book’s magic would be discourteous, because even after it is over, you find yourself missing the gang: the now 21-year old Ryan who was led so miserably astray; the incredibly odd, part-sociopath, part-seer Maureen; Tony and his deep love for his children, despite his pitiful state; even Jimmy, the almost-scripted gangster with the hilarious relationship with his mother; and indeed, even Georgie, whose story is so pathetic it makes you want to look away.
Misfits trying to survive in the seedy underbelly of the Irish city can only hope to find redemption
You will also realise the importance of place in this book. The central figures number six, but the most vital, most instrumental character of all, is the city of Cork, Ireland, where the story is set. Time and again the characters look over Cork with a mix of bitterness, anguish, and weary awe. “What keeps this bloody city alive at all?” wonders Maureen. They blame their circumstances on Cork and look at its seedy offerings in disgust. McInerney offers her readers a shot of Cork through The Glorious Heresies — the kind junkies take. “Cork’s not going to notice the last faltering steps on a lost little man,” says the narrator. “All those lives, all those beams, crisscrossed into the grandest of structures … the city won’t see the snapping sticks, or feel the first sparks.”
The language is admittedly gorgeous. McInerney’s lyrical prose will inspire you to bring out your own notebook and start penning beautiful gems. Every other page has something worth underlining, picking apart, pondering over, but due to the rushed pace of the story, you will simply feel you never get the time.
However, there are times you find yourself disconnected. Sometimes the plot stretches too thin, sometimes a storyline feels worn out. Some characters are more likeable than others. Some are plain boring while others are frustratingly stupid, not to mention repetitive, with their choices. You will find yourself willing the story on, uncertain why a particular scene is there at all. And let’s not forget the language barrier: the book is written in a thick, and I emphasise thick, regional dialect which may be difficult to read for the uninitiated.
Ultimately then, The Glorious Heresies offers deeply emphatic looks into the minds of those led astray. A recovering alcoholic, for example, or two teenagers whose once-beautiful puppy love goes up in flames after a prison stint and a case of infidelity; a prostitute on a mission after an unkind upbringing and an even worse young-adulthood; an old woman who was pushed to the fringes after getting pregnant when she wasn’t married back in the ‘60s and that sort of thing wasn’t tolerated. It is a truly rich narrative with complications and loose ends brought together in an almost satisfying conclusion — almost, because the twists at the end are dark and do nothing to rectify an incurably damaged past, the shambles brought into the present, and the toll taken on all six characters.
There is enough material in the book to be turned into a TV adaptation — it has been announced that director and producer Julian Fariano (The Office, Entourage) will be taking over production. A sequel to the book is also expected in April next year.
The writer works for a non-profit concerning education in Pakistan.
The Glorious Heresies
(NOVEL)
By Lisa McInerney
Hodder & Stoughton, UK
ISBN: 978-1444798883
384pp.
Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, November 13th, 2016
