
The Rachel Incident feels like an important moment for London-based Cork writer Caroline O’Donoghue. Her sixth novel was acquired by the prestigious British women’s publishing house, Virago, and pre-empted in the United States by Knopf’s hit-maker editor Jenny Jackson, and is already being adapted for the screen by Universal studios.
The novel is a coming-of-age story about two friends, a love story about two unlikely soul mates and a mystery about a time in Rachel’s life as a student in Cork that came to be known as the eponymous “incident”.
The book is a beautifully functioning object and O’Donoghue carefully drops little seeds at different points in the narrative so the novel feels like a garden strategically planted to bloom all year round.
[ Caroline O’Donoghue: The greatest act of love a person has ever performed for me ]
The story feels slick and refined like an expensive HBO series, but what gives it heart is O’Donoghue’s raucous humour slathered on top. Not only does she give us a deeply satisfying novel about friendship, love and the uncertain Ireland of 2010, she also gives us laughs, many of them out loud. In fact, I laughed so much it made me nostalgic for the last book that made me feel this way.
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O’Donoghue’s descriptions of sex are painfully funny and vivid. She describes over-zealous lovers thus: “They sucker on to your clitoris like a fish at the side of a tank.” Or when writing about what it was like to arrange a termination in England pre-Repeal, she writes: “You select a clinic based not so much on safety or medical prowess but on where Ryanair is doing a deal with that month.” The black humour perfectly balances the more familiar elements of a romantic coming-of-age story and the even pacing means the story never sags or loses momentum, and everybody finally gets the ending they deserve.
At one point Rachel is discussing a writer with a friend, who says, “God, well he was always going to be famous, wasn’t he?” and it feels like O’Donoghue could be writing about herself because The Rachel Incident will surely set her on a path to literary stardom. Not because she reinvents the wheel but rather because her smart and funny novels are the kind of books that readers look forward to, and also because there is nobody else quite like her.