Book Review: Big Girl Small Town

 

•  Author: Michelle Gallen

• Where I bought this book: Half Price Books, Florence, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: It was a novel about Northern Ireland that seemed intriguing 

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    Majella O'Neill exists in an out-of-the-way border town in Northern Ireland. She works in a chip shop, and took up smoking so she had excuses to take breaks.

 

   Otherwise, she's a loner, an introvert, and an observer of people.

    She doesn't like her job -- it's a greasy dead end, but it's the best she can do on the Catholic side of Aghybogey. She doesn't really like people, her town, her customers, fashion, makeup -- oh, heck, she doesn't like a lot of things. So many, in fact, that she maintains a detailed, numerical list of such things.

    She does enjoy a few things: the TV show Dallas, which she watches on video every night. Her greasy free nightly meal from the chip shop. Sex. And drinking in the pub.

    The novel is mostly about Majella's observations of her town, its people, and her interactions with the customers. Gallen is exhaustive in reviewing her conversations, even when they are identical every night. She make this clear -- she has similar discussions with the same people every night, and not only does she reiterate them, she reminds you these are the same discussions she always has with the same people.

    Such is the flaw of an otherwise methodical novel that tries to give you the sense of  a small town in Northern Ireland after The Troubles. It does a middling job on the tedious daily life, but larger details -- such as Majella's relationship with her grandmother, Maggie, whose violent death is portrayed more as sort of a minor point -- are glossed over.

    Nonetheless, it's an interesting and surprisingly quick read.