The Road to the Sea

Ciara Hegarty

246pp, Macmillan New Writing 2010

In one sense The Road to the Sea is a ghost story, a story that examines the different ways we can be haunted by the past and how that stunts our futures. Set in 1940’s Ireland the novel is also an exploration of change and its fall out. Not all change is dramatic but Hegarty subtly charts the repercussions of the Second World War and it’s affect on the men that fought, she shows the new generation expanding their horizons and leaving home, and most devastingly the changes to familial dynamics after losing a loved one.

After the tragic death of her twin sister, Kathleen is forced to make the transition from child to adult prematurely and this blurs the relationships between herself, her parents and her siblings. Though a slow burner the book is intricately written and once newcomer Joseph enters Kathleen’s life she learns that adult actions are confirmed by adult choices.

Joseph Foley’s background is found scattered throughout the novel like breadcrumbs and though the reader may never feel they know Joseph’s past, his interior life is explored with great detail.

On his first day, Joseph had not known how to behave. He felt exposed, self-conscious. Even the closest house or farm building was distant enough for him to have to strain his eyes . . .

Ballinara is often presented as a rural haven through the eyes of Kathleen and Joseph but the realities of life still make themselves known like windows shaking after a bomb has dropped. The residents of Ballinara are not exempt from keeping up appearances and Kathleen soon becomes burdened with the differences between doing what is actually right and what appears to be right. In the end Kathleen is not able to keep the family, which she worked so hard to look after, together.

They had been down at their fairy dell at the curve in the boreen in their good dresses, the two of them bedecked with daisy-chain crowns and bracelets and dandelion earrings . . .

The Road to the Sea is not a simple coming of age story though. It is an emotionally complex tale that lures the reader into sympathising with actions that would usually inspire disgust. Though very stylistically different The Road to the Sea shares similarities with As I lay Dying by William Faulkner, as the demise of the family is sparked by the loss of the matriarch. Without her mother Kathleen is left as vulnerable as Faulkner’s Dewey Dell Bundren. The main difference is that Kathleen’s mother can in some respects be seen to have side stepped her responsibilities by removing herself from the real world. Mrs Steele’s illness is matter of great ambiguity, though it’s obvious she is grieving for her child (their mother was daily so visibly dipped in grief . . .), her self-removal from family life is at times quite supernatural and ghostly. It is not until near the end of the novel that the reader gets some measure of her character. Technically the novel has quite a neat ending but it is an ending that will cast shadows of regret and ‘what if’s’. An extremely emotional and provoking book that is likely to have readers adjusting their own moral yardstick.

Jo Brandon is a Leeds based poet and General Editor of Cadaverine.

Cadaverine Magazine 2010