Heartfelt story of our times

INTERVIEW:Sarah Harte's debut novel, ' The Better Half', is a witty look at modern Ireland, writes ANNA CAREY

'IT STILL FEELS VERY self-indulgent to say I’m a writer,” says Sarah Harte, who gave up her job as a corporate lawyer four years ago to concentrate on writing. She gestures towards a copy of her book and laughs. “So it’s nice to have concrete proof.”

Harte's glossy debut The Better Halfis a deceptively sharp, witty look at modern Ireland. It's the story of Anita, the wife of a successful property developer, whose comfortable world of parties and boozy lunches is starting to crumble. Her children are leaving the nest, her husband Frank is unfaithful. When the recession starts to bite, she and her fellow socialites have to ask whether relying so much on their husbands was a good idea.

Harte didn’t initially plan to write about Ireland’s financial meltdown. Having observed several women “struggling to redefine themselves” when their children grew up, she wanted to explore the idea that “sometimes, if you become very immersed in your family life, there can be a tab to pick up personally later on”. (Having worked “crazy hours” as well as part-time and at home, she has sympathy with mothers in both the home and the office.) But by the time she began to write the novel, banks were falling and her characters were put in a whole new context.

Anita’s world is one her creator knows well. Harte’s husband is well-known restaurateur and property developer Jay Bourke, whose own fortunes have fluctuated in recent years. Despite her spouse’s high profile, Harte has always avoided the spotlight. “I’ve always paddled my own canoe and I’m a private person,” she says. “I suppose we’re different in that respect. I love art and going to exhibitions, but you’d never catch me at a first night. I have no public profile.”

Her desire for privacy has certainly worked – when she was interviewed last year about her plans for the book, she was asked if she and her husband had been together long. When she said they had (they’ve been a couple for 17 years and have a teenage son), the interviewer was amazed, having not previously realised Bourke was even married. Of course, all that is about to change.

“This is my first time sticking my head above the parapet,” says Harte. “And yes, I feel really self-conscious.” She knows people will wonder whether the book is autobiographical. “But I don’t really care,” she says. “Frank is so different from Jay – in background, in personality. People who know us will know we’re not Anita and Frank.” She also hopes that when her friends read the book, they’ll stop asking whether they’re in it – she never considered writing about thinly disguised versions of real people. “It’s a horrible thing to do.”

But while her characters may be fictitious, the privileged world they inhabit is not. “In terms of tone, it’s a realistic picture. It’s not exaggerated.” She didn’t, however, want to “sit in judgment” over this world, which is why she gave her heroine a working-class background, making her both insider and outsider. “Looking at that world through Anita’s eyes gave me a bit of critical distance.”

Although Harte grew up in a comfortable Cork family, her inner-city characters are refreshingly unpatronising. Anita’s sister Karen, who initially threatens to be a brash stereotype, turns out to be not just witty, but politically active. At one stage, she tells her sister that this is a “rich person’s recession”, reflecting Harte’s own sympathy with those who didn’t benefit from the boom, yet are paying for its aftermath.

“I reject the notion that the entire country was all in it together, that we all partied,” she says. “I don’t think that’s true. Many people’s lives are incredibly circumscribed because of things that weren’t of their doing.”

Through Anita, who turns down a place at Trinity as a teenager because she feels so out of place there, Harte also tackles a subject that isn’t often addressed in fiction – the “invisible barrier” that keeps disadvantaged young people out of university, despite free fees.

As someone whose family always expected her to go to university, Harte is well aware of her own privilege.

“There was something very cosy about the way I went to college,” she says. “I knew everyone there. I had a very supportive family. If it’s taken for granted that you’ll go to university, you feel secure about the whole process. But when I went to Trinity [for a postgrad] I remember thinking it could be really intimidating for some people to come to this place where there’s this shared invisible language. Access [to education] is not just a question of money, which is why if we want to improve it, it’s important to start funding at a pre-primary level, not at third level.”

If this all sounds a bit grim, well, it shouldn’t, because as well as making some astute points about Irish society, The Better Half is also a ripping yarn. And I know I won’t be the only reader to finish it with a lump in my throat.

Harte admits that writing the optimistic final scenes made even her a bit weepy. “And I’m not a sentimental person. As a kid I thought Lassie was a loser – other girls would be crying over this stuff and I’d be sitting there thinking there was something wrong with me. But whenever I went over those last scenes with Anita, I cried.”

The Better Halfis published by Penguin Ireland, £12.99/€15