Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell review – a dread-stoking domestic abuse drama
O’Donnell brings the spare intensity of her award-winning short stories to her first novel, a compulsive tale of one woman’s escape intensified by Dublin’s housing crisis
When it comes to escaping an abusive relationship, it’s said that leaving is the simple part; the real challenge is not returning. For Ciara Fay, pregnant and with her two small girls in tow, the difficulty is magnified by Dublin’s housing crisis, still one of the worst in Europe. Having finally bundled the kids into the car, along with a few impulsively grabbed necessities and the little cash she’s been able to save, hidden in a nappy, she’s faced with a stark question: where are they to go?
Nesting, Roisín O’Donnell’s compulsive debut novel, makes of Ciara’s bid for safety and freedom a minutely observed, heart-juddering drama. To the casual onlooker, husband Ryan is a well-dressed, mass-attending civil servant, but over the course of their five-year marriage he has subjected Ciara to relentless emotional abuse and more, isolating her from friends, preventing her from working, controlling their finances. “Things happen at night,” Ciara imagines saying out loud. “My body doesn’t feel like my own.”
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