Cathy Sweeney’s debut novel, which follows on from her well-received short story collection Modern Times, tells the story of a breakdown as an unnamed middle-aged narrator leaves her husband and two children asleep in their suburban Dublin home on a seeming whim.
Her unplanned departure from her comfortable life takes her on a drive through Ireland, via her hometown, to Rosslare, where she catches a ferry to Wales. As she details her journey, she muses on the events, aspirations and disappointments which have brought her to this point, where her relationships and societies expectations of her have finally proven to be too much for her.
These days, I see the signs of breakdown everywhere. Inside people, in their families, in communities, in society, in the planet.
With an impressive economy of language and a spare prose style, Sweeney brings to life the unnamed 52-year-old narrator, who is a Dublin teacher, married to Tom, a successful businessman. Her life seems, on the surface to be picture perfect, with a beautiful home and two successful and well-adjusted children. Appearances can be deceptive though, and this woman, defined only by her roles as mother and wife, is unfulfilled. Once an aspiring artist, she now teaches instead. She finds her husband dull and has had an affair with a younger man. She feels she has nothing in common with her children, or her friends and she is drinking a bottle of wine a day.
As she faces another routine day, driving to work like any other day, she decides to turn in a different direction at traffic lights and drives straight into the unknown. She leaves her family and her well-ordered life with no plan at all, just the need to not do what she has always done.
I feel I have no identity now, no point of reference.
Is this what I wanted? An expanse of nothing opening up where a future should be?
48 hours after leaving, hounded by WhatsApp messages and calls that become increasingly frantic, she finds herself in a cottage in Wales, where she explores her past, decides what it is that she actually wants from life and tries to come to terms with the chaos her actions have caused.
Cathy Sweeney has created a fascinating portrait of a woman on the brink, who, in one single act of selfishness, finally awakens to her own needs and wants. Her depiction of one woman’s life leads to a poignant and perceptive exploration of the pressures and expectations placed on women through marriage and motherhood and the sacrifices they have to make both to fulfil those expectations. There is a stark honesty to the writing that lays bare painful truths, truths that many women have to set aside in order to continue from day to day.
That they dislike one of their children.
That they are bored with their ‘nice’ husband…
That they are sometimes scared of their son.
That their daughters blackmail them emotionally.
That occasionally they think about killing themselves.
By disappearing from one life, Sweeney’s protagonist becomes solid in another, learning, painfully for her and for the rest of her family, who it is she has always wanted to be. Sweeney does a good job of making this woman relatable, even though some of her actions, particularly towards her children, verge on the callous. Breakdown is a sharp, insightful novel, that explores the very specific question of identity through the depiction of an ‘everywoman’.
‘Maybe you think you know her’, writes Sweeney, ‘or maybe you know her type’. She cleverly asks the reader to recognise this woman in other women we know, and maybe even in ourselves.
