Married To A Cave Man
by Damien Owens
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
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Pub Date 16 Jan 2018 | Archive Date 23 Nov 2018
Unbound | Unbound Digital
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Description
Married to a Cave Man is set in north Dublin in the dark days of Ireland’s economic crash. It centres on three marriages, each of which is experiencing a rough patch that’s about to turn a whole lot rougher. It’s a story of frustration, desperation and regret. It might not sound like it, but it’s a comedy.
Stephen and Nancy Cole have two boys under three. Nancy had always been vocal about the need for mothers to give up work for the first few years of their kids’ lives. She did so — and is now barely clinging onto her sanity. Stephen can tell that something's up with her but he doesn’t investigate too hard. After a tough day in a job he doesn’t enjoy, he just wants some down time with his beloved video games.
Next door to Nancy and Stephen live the McNamaras, Julie and Vincent. Julie works in advertising, while Vincent stays home with their baby and Jeremy Kyle (not literally). He’s besotted with his daughter and understands that his wife has the greater earning power. Still, he can't help but wonder if he has somehow stunted his masculinity. He has no idea that Julie wonders the same thing and is sliding towards an affair.
Across the street live the Dunlops, Leo and Deirdre. Leo, a serious record collector, has been unemployed for six months. Deirdre works as a PA in a dreary plumbing supplies company. They desperately want a baby but it isn’t happening, despite a sexual regime that has left them mentally and physically bruised. Deirdre tortures herself with the idea that her minor weight problem is to blame and spends every night on exercise bike. Leo, meanwhile, has given up on himself and is now merely pretending to look for work.
Stephen is the first of the husbands to decide that what he really needs — nay, deserves — is a man cave, a place where he can kick back and be alone. He empties out the garage and turns it into a shrine to gaming. Vincent likes the idea and follows suit, making himself landlord and sole patron of a little mock pub. Before long, Leo completes the set, clearing out the old paint cans and dragging in hundreds of records.
Nancy, Julie and Deirdre react to these moves with varying degrees of horror, disgust and low-level violence. Tensions that had been bubbling under now bubble very much over and before long, all three relationships are in crisis.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781911586845 |
| PRICE | £10.99 (GBP) |
Featured Reviews
Kim R, Reviewer
I knew Damien was a great writer before I started this book but if I hadn't known that before I would be aware now. Damien Owens is a master of dialogue and this book is no exception. Beautifully written and an absolute pleasure to read.
Would translate well into a tv series. I'd love to see these characters on screen.
I didn't want this book to end.
Charlotte J, Reviewer
* Disclaimer: I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
I became drawn to this book mostly due to the cover and also the fact that it is a contemporary fiction about marriage written by a male author, which I feel is not very common.
When all of the characters were introduced at the beginning of the novel, I felt that I might get confused between them. However, this was not the case and I found that they were all distinct and had their own personalities. Each member of the three couples that the story follows almost seemed like a stereotype usually found in romantic comedies but portrayed in a much more realistic way. I felt that the dramas that happened were understandable and were resolved in relatively realistic ways.
This contemporary novel takes the idea of a man cave and uses it to study these three couples and I really enjoyed that. It seemed very current and I would recommend it to both male and female readers as I don't think the author focused on either gender over the other. Also I liked that one of the characters was a stay-at-home father as this is something that I've rarely seen in fiction.
Jessica H, Reviewer
Funny and light, without being trite.
If you have ever wanted to bash your significant other around the head with a blunt instrument one moment and in the next instance wondered if you might actually be married to a real life superhero because you are so in awe of them, then you will identify with this book. We all love our other halves, right? But crikey oh blimey they know how to push our buttons.
So many “romance books” (not sure this entirely falls into that category, but for argument's sake) are about the chase. They are about the 'boy meets girl', the desperate tumble into love, the overcoming of inevitable disaster, etc. What I loved about this book is that it picks up where most others end off. We meet these 3 couples when they’ve done the falling in love part a long time ago and are now well into the humdrum of daily life.
And so this book, in a funny but delicate way, looks at the trials and tribulations of marriage and family life. How couples support each other through some of life’s biggest challenges. How they wonder what the hell they have got themselves into. How children will find a battery to put in their mouths, no matter how hard you watch them.
Owens captures that special brand of light sarcasm that every long term couple seems to have developed with each other - the one that can turn barbed at a moment's notice. And he paints family life in such wonderful, technicolour hilarity. Several times I had a fit of the sniggers and had to compose myself while reading on the bus.
And then it deals with the big issues. Whether being a stay at home dad makes you less of a man (spoiler alert - it doesn’t), whether infertility makes it OK to get secretly mad at pregnant ladies (it does, just a little bit) and if it is entirely legitimate to turn your garage into a games room (the jury is out on that one).
I just loved every cotton-picking minute of it. It was a quick but gorgeous read. And its out now, so go get your hands on it.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. Married to a Cave Man is OUT NOW by Unbound
