Book Review: "Ordinary Human Failings" by Megan Nolan

Really, who would care about a family like theirs? Theirs were ordinary human failings, tragedies too routine to be of note.

- Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan

Megan Nolan was not an author I was initially interested in reading because honestly, her writing sounded a little dry to me. Online, I was introduced to her book Ordinary Human Failings and because it was short and available on the cheap, I decided to give it a read. Honestly, it is wonderfully crafted. The book is a passionate look at how the media constructs different narratives according to the people and the story it is trying to tell.

The antagonising Thomas will do anything for a good story and so, manages to build a narrative against a 10-year-old girl from a migrant Irish family, her mother is a teen mum and her grandmother raises her. To be from a migrant family is one thing but to be in horrid poverty is another. After investigations into her school life which seem wholly unecessary, Thomas learns of this girl's strange games with other children which often involved some acts of violence. This leads to the girl being questioned on the fact that she may have killed another little girl.

The decased child is a little bit younger, native to England and her name is Mia. Mia comes from a poor family too, but her family is presented as one the nation has failed. Her face is framed in blonde curls and her demeanour is described as pretty. The public mourning begins, as does the witch hunt egged on by the media. As we learn more about Mia, we also learn more about the other girl and how both situations may differ yet are very similar to each other.

We are taught about the rampant discrimination of the Irish in England at a turbulent time in history and honestly, the framing of the end of Part 1 just broke my heart and it will break yours too. A passionate outcry, a horrid situation and a media man who makes it worse for both sides, Megan Nolan writes a near-perfect story of grief. The symbolism of what happens at the end of Part 1 is something that I actually spent the whole week thinking about. I couldn't stop hearing the crying and screaming in my head. It was haunting.

“She had never fully lost this terror of the private suffering of other people, nor the shame of wanting not to see it.”

- Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan

Told in snapshots of various people, this book involves not only one family but the people they encounter as well. Secrets begin to emerge from over the decades and we begin to realise that this is not a crime story but rather a deep and meaningful look into the unhappiness of one family over multiple generations. If you're looking for a story that investigates crime then you've probably come to the wrong place. As we get deeper into the narrative, we find tha this isn't about the crime at all. Not just a story about inter-generational trauma, it covers a wide variety of discriminations and poverty-stricken sadness with a young girl at its centre who gave up everything for love that she doesn't end up getting.

We learn that the people in the story that we antagonise (apart from Thomas, he can piss off) are really more in-depth characters who have entire back stories, secrets that hang over their lives and grievances that they cannot ignore. From the death of Rose all the way to the reason why some of the men drink themselves happy, there is something deeply depressing about this book that I didn't realise when I started reading it.

All in all, I found this book to be an intensely and intricately painted portrait of one family's attempt at survival. Paintings of depression, loss and identity - it explores how a person's emotional injuries shape them throughout their lives. From the young child who is accused of killing a younger child all the way to the older men and their perceived failings - this book is a starkly different novel to many things I have read this year. It is truly brilliant.