The opening chapter of this absorbing, propulsive novel is told from a fascinating viewpoint: that of a mistress at the funeral of her lover, who also happened to be the love of her life. Juliet has travelled from New Zealand to attend Rory’s burial; she is the invisible woman at the service, receiving no support, no sympathy, existing only in a “disassociated fug” of jet lag and profound grief. She’s a wild, sexy woman who speaks out of turn, laughs a little too loudly and is prone to self-sabotage.
At the front of the church sits the deceased’s widow, Erica, a buttoned-up, fragrant, polished sort of woman. The second chapter segues to her point of view: “It’s crushing, having the crowd behind, like something pinning the back of her neck so that it’s an effort to keep her head raised.”
Also in attendance is exhausted, put-upon Maeve with her indifferent husband, pugnacious kids and a mother with dementia who is increasingly difficult to reach. Lately, Maeve has felt “a sort of generalised irritability that needs no reason, has no shape”.
The three women grew up in the 1980s in a small town just outside Dublin and were at the height of teenage existential angst when one of their closest friends died. Each has been processing the fallout from this tragic event in the years since.
All the characters in this entirely engaging story are well-rounded, plausible and easy to relate to. Tiernan, who was born in Ireland but lives with her family in New Zealand, is a gifted writer – her voice is as fresh as Meg Mason‘s and as spiky and humorous as Zoe Heller‘s. She sees Ireland with the clear-eyed observation of one who has been away from it: Juliet “misses these quiet Irish scenes: the patchwork of fields, the tangle of hedges, the rusting iron gates. That distinctive loamy tang of silage. And crows, oddly.”
The resolution of the story is a little too tidy and somewhat implausible – but this is just nit-picking and doesn’t take from the overall pleasure of reading such an elegant and skilfully written book. The Good Mistress is full of humour and pathos and holds the reader’s attention throughout.
