Acts of Desperation

Scott Fitzgerald famously observed that there are no second acts in American lives. But the unnamed narrator of Acts of Desperation, after an episode of obsessive “love” and betrayal, turns a moment of weakness into a second act which vindicates her self-hood and demonstrates that there can be a whole range of betrayal, while still retaining a form of faith in love.

Lauren Coe reads the novel very well, her voice quite similar to Eimear McBrides reading of her own The Lesser Bohemians.

In 2012, the narrator, a female of about 24 who dropped out of Trinity and works in a hip burger place, is unhesitatingly eager for a relationship with Ciarán, an “exceptionally beautiful” man, making a precarious living as a reviewer in Dublin. He is also somewhat exotic in having a Danish mother.

The narrator’s passion quickly turns obsessive. “There was no religion in my life after early childhood, and a great faith in love was what I had cultivated instead.” Blind to his many faults, even the miserliness so minutely detailed, she enters a very one-sided relationship. However, a serpent in this Paradise is Freja, Ciarán’s former girlfriend (though maybe more “girlfriend” than “former”) and the first act of desperation takes place over a Christmas when she returns to her parents in Waterford. Her increasingly frenzied attempts to establish contact at a distance and the worry about some accident and then the hope that there was a misunderstanding are conveyed so authentically.

Later, with betrayal coldly confirmed, she is so mentally displaced that she dreams in detail of killing Freja and, on waking, is not dismissive of the idea. And Dr Google is consulted about “obsessive love.” We also learn of episodes of obsessive fasting and cutting as a teen.

But a casual, lonely text to Ciarán kicks off act two and this time the narrator moves in with him and, while initially remaining obsessed, observes Ciarán almost as a laboratory rat, detailing all his behaviours.

She also begins to outwit him, firstly by covertly drinking a bottle of wine before the one bottle the anti-alcohol Ciarán permits her for an evening. “Nothing works like drinking does.” Later, comes the observation that it had been a full year, of her 24 years, since she had spent a full evening with anyone but Ciarán.

She increasingly realises that the sex is all that holds her to him. “Then we went to bed...the friendliness of a body’s smell and softness overcoming the sour rest of him.” As she increasingly develops her independence and resumes and initiates social contacts, the tables turn. “I had chosen someone who was by nature indifferent, and made it my project to make him love me. And she had succeeded.

Ciarán is then introduced to desperation, including one grossly amusing sexual episode where he unwittingly comes into close contact with the narrator’s lover of a few hours before.

The story, while its bones have been the basis for many books, is compellingly told, moving at a fast pace, interspersed with calm, philosophical, and often biting interjections from the narrator five years later, in Greece. It’s absolutely a page-turner and gives a vivid sense of what Dublin was in fairly recent times for a woman in her mid 20s unafraid of acting on her desires.

Unlike some bestsellers of the past few years about women being subjugated by partners, the situations here have credibility and an awareness that the narrator is slowly rising from the depths and will breathe freely again

And love is not inextricably linked to desperation, as the narrator notes (with a nice use of semi-colon) five years later: “Being in love feels like nothing so much as hope; a distilled, clear hope which would be impossible to manufacture on your own.”