Are You Somebody

I bought Are You Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman on the sale rack at a Barnes and Noble store in Bellingham for absolutely no explicable reason. Then I left it on my shelf for over a decade without reading it, again for no reason whatsoever. If third time’s a charm, then I ought to know why I picked it up the other night and read it. But I don’t.

Much like Nuala O’Faolain herself in writing the memoir, I stumbled into it and found it absolutely moving. As O’Faolain describes moving along in life without strategy, I felt that creepy sensation of someone reading my diary, but, actually it was me reading hers. I picked the book up the evening I discovered that I had not had a real conversation in a week. As disconcerting as that is, I’m young, go to social group things, work, have a housemate, etc, so it’s not as though I’m at risk of having some disaster befall me and not be found for a week. O’Faolain, however, has that grim possibility presented to her even as she recalls the people she knew for whom it was reality.

There are many tracks that O’Faolain’s memoir takes which entranced me. She can put so many specific pieces of information into each story, to the point where the details almost overtake the actual event, making them more solid, whereas for many authors they would instead become tedious. She lists her relationships in a mesmerizing way for they were at once the part of her life she most obsessed about and was most detached from. She cites her strokes of luck and her irresponsibility and continual subscription to faith and ignorance without any chagrin or shame or uncertainty or defensiveness. She gives another context for the budding women’s movement of the mid-late 20^th Century, sharing freshly and intelligently.

I love her matter-of-factness. I love her ability to say plainly terrible things without sensationalism. I love that she understands something of the plight of humanity and that she isn’t scared or unusually brave, either. I don’t know if everyone needs to read this story, this memoir of a Dublin woman. But I needed to read it. I also need to have another good conversation!