Ordinary Human Failings: The heart-breaking, unflinching, compulsive new novel from the author of Acts of Desperation

Product Information

In the summer of 2022, when life returned to something resembling its former self, my notion of contentment as an equivalent to happiness was pierced dramatically. As the world expanded again, so did my ideas about pleasure and meaning. For the first time in my life, I had real choices about how I wanted to live (an unspeakably privileged problem to complain about), and I struggled to understand whether happiness for me means stimulation and excitement or comfort and calm. For some people these things are not mutually exclusive, but for me they seem to be. It has always been one or the other, and now I have to choose. Then there’s Richie, Carmel’s rakish older half-brother. His need for an elusive sense of connection and belonging sends him straight to the bottle. There’s John, another alcoholic, the father of the family, prone to intermittent bouts of rage, perhaps understandable given his life-changing injuries after an accident at work and the humiliating end of his first marriage.

The character that I most enjoyed is Richie. It’s not easy to write a character who has been so totally overwhelmed by alcohol dependency, and retain some reader empathy. Nolan manages to do this. His primary fear is of loneliness and isolation:Ordinary Human Failings is a considerably more interesting book than it claims to be. It’s pitched as a procedural thriller of sorts – an unsolved murder, the cops closing in, an ambitious journalist snooping around. While there may be a depressing commercial logic to this framing, it does the novel scant justice; those plot elements amount to little more than a deftly handled framing device. Beyond lies a subtle, accomplished and lyrical study of familial and intergenerational despair, a quiet book about quiet lives. And it also happens to be an excellent novel: politically astute, furious and compassionate. It’s considerably better than Nolan’s first novel, the acclaimed Acts of Desperation – worth stating, given our neophilic literary culture’s obsession with debuts and novelty. The synopsis of Ordinary Human Failings reads: “It’s 1990 in London and Carmel’s daughter is suspected of murdering another child. Carmel is beautiful, otherworldly, broken, and was once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life – and love – got in her way. Crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment, there’s nowhere for her to go and no chance of escape. Piccole umane debolezze “ è la somma di tutto questo, una trama essenziale, cruda, violenta, fondata su un incipit rivelatorio, il ritrovamento del cadavere di una bambina di tre anni, Mia Enright, una terribile accusa rivolta alla sua ultima compagna di giuochi, Lucy Green, posta in stato di fermo, mentre i famigliari, degli sbandati irlandesi imbrattati di stranezza e inadeguatezza sociale, sono ostaggio di un lungo interrogatorio. I adored Megan Nolan's first book - so much so, I read it twice. I was so excited to read her new offering and was delighted to receive an early copy.

The author dives into some complex themes: childhood trauma, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, self-sabotage, sociopathic ambition, and more. She prises them open carefully, thoughtfully and without judgement. With topics like these, it's no surprise that this is a sad book, but it carries within it a thread of hope which is unbroken to the end. Sarebbe bastato soffermarsi sul titolo per comprendere il nucleo di quello che, a tutti gli effetti, è un romanzo familiare camuffato da thriller. The story follows an Irish family in early 90s London who become tabloid scapegoats after tragedy strikes in their neighbourhood. The Greens fled Ireland in the wake of daughter Carmel’s teenage pregnancy and her brother Ritchie’s escalating alcoholism. When a young child is mysteriously murdered, their London neighbours point the blame at them, while an ambitious journalist tries to get his big break. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side.I was talking with a friend lately about an impulse many writers have, not least myself, to finish pieces like this one with some ill-earned flourish of moral clarity. “All articles,” I said, “end in one of two ways: ‘And at the end of the day, who cares?’ or ‘At the end of the day, love is what matters.’” I am trying to resist that impulse. I am trying to avoid casting my indecision about what constitutes happiness as its own kind of moral victory. I am not going to smugly advise that the key to happiness lies in accepting its transience. Still, the book begins with Tom’s perspective: his ambition and anxiety, his charm and cynicism. One minor gripe would be that while the future lives of the Green family members are hinted at towards the end, the equally interesting Tom simply slips away. Perhaps he just moves on, unaffected; perhaps, as Carmel thinks to herself, he “didn’t understand and would never feel the consequences of” the cruelty of his job, insulated by power and money. But early on, Nolan hints at a character too intelligent for that, and Tom is plagued by self-loathing. When he can’t stop the phrase “ I’m the loneliest man in the world!” from “screaming” round his brain, he foreshadows the isolation that also defines each of the Greens. It’s clear that his work – hateful as it may be – is his own act of desperate distraction. I wondered what became of him, too. Close psychological work is what MN is most confident with. She is most comfortable drawing on her own life experiences rather than trying to create a fantasy. The event that sets in motion Megan Nolan’s second novel is a chilling one – the murder of a minor, seemingly at the hands of another child. Ordinary Human Failings, predominantly set in early-90s London, opens with a frantic investigation to uncover what happened to three-year-old Mia Enright. Her crumpled, bruised body is found by a rubbish chute in the Nunhead council estate where she lived. Neighbours say they last saw her playing with Lucy Green, the unpredictable 10-year-old daughter of an Irish family that has long been the source of xenophobic suspicion amongst the residents of Skyler Square.

Ordinary Human Failings is a third person narrative about an ordinary family damaged by a series of very mundane, personal tragedies. The same quality of writing is there but this is a very different, more mature type of book to Acts of Desperation. In quello spazio sperava che i contorni delle scuse che le aveva rivolto anni prima, così trascurabili nella loro forma parlata, diventassero evidenti e concreti. Le scuse che ancora non riusciva a esprimere in modo eloquente, quelle che non sarebbero mai finite e che lei rivolgeva a Lucy e alla bambina a cui aveva tolto la vita, e a se stessa, ogni mattina che si svegliava, pensando, Mi dispiace, mi dispiace, mi dispiace”…. When a young girl in a London council estate dies, rumors start to fly about the Green family. After all, the girl was last seen playing with their daughter Lucy. And hasn’t Lucy always been a bit odd? Her mother Carmel is never around, her Uncle Richie a barely functioning alcoholic, and the Grandad John is reclusive and detached. It was interesting to me that Nolan continued the theme of loneliness in the reflections of a seemingly very different character, journalist, Tom.

The elements of the book—young mother, alcoholism, leaving Ireland, unscrupulous tabloid newspaper—are all pretty predictable and can feel a bit stereotypical, but the book also does try and dig a bit further into the family and how small failings have an impact. The journalist, Tom, doesn't really have much of a plotline, and some hints about him being able to be a chameleon in different settings and how he tries to get in with the family could've been explored a bit further in the narrative. If I had a criticism, it’s that I didn’t love the inclusion of Tom’s character. While I appreciate the perspective offered by the tabloid media angle, Tom felt somewhat shoehorned into what was already a very strong family story. A gloomy, oppressive story, definitely not a poolside read, but with hints of hope and shades of Claire Keegan. 3.5-4/5⭐️ We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.