Susannah Dickey’s third novel, Into the Wreck, centres around the much-loved Irish literary device of a family funeral. Siblings Anna, Gemma and Matthew haven’t been under the same roof since Anna left home at the age of 16, shortly after their parents split up. But their father’s sudden and tragic death brings them together again in the crucible of the family home, replete with their mother’s oppressive fury and cousin Amy’s chivvying joviality.
Into the Wreck is broken into five parts, with each character getting their own dedicated point of view, and it becomes an unexpected page-turner, each section laying down new information like a 3D printer, so that the reader is compelled to read on to discover the ultimate shape of the story. The effect is cumulative and powerful, with the story gathering pace, tension and emotional impact with a few well-placed plot reveals along the way.
The book is set in Northern Ireland and Dickey, a Derry native, manages to skilfully include the brutalising legacy of the Troubles while simultaneously keeping it in the background – it’s not, after all, what this story is about, but it is a crucial part of her characters’ make-up.
Dickey’s tart observations, particularly in the siblings’ sections, add an arch levity to the grief and recrimination. Anna’s description of a friend’s job as “a succession of corporate nouns” drew a smile, while her portrayal of Amy as like “a woman in a tampon commercial, all empty aphorisms and easy feminism” is deliciously wicked.
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Still in her early 30s, Dickey has already published two acclaimed novels, Tennis Lessons (2020) and Common Decency (2022), along with a collection of poetry, ISDAL (2023), which won the inaugural PEN Heaney award and was shortlisted for a Forward Prize. Into the Wreck will likely garner more praise for Dickey. It is a profoundly moving reflection on the unknowability of human beings, and the gulf that often exists between how we are perceived by others and how we perceive ourselves.
Although I had some minor issues with the book – the slight mishandling of the farcical denouement; the rupture of Matthew’s section with the female characters’ thoughts; the too-prominent presence of the literal shipwreck from which the book takes its title – they only felt like flaws because Dickey’s standard is so dazzlingly high that the reader (unfairly) begins to expect perfection. It’s still one of the best novels I’ve read this year from an unusually gifted writer.
Edel Coffey, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a journalist and broadcaster. Her latest novel, In Glass Houses, is published by Sphere
