A review by foggy_rosamund
Are You Somebody?: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman by Nuala O'Faolain

3.0

This book was immensely popular when it was first published. It seemed to speak, for the first time, of a particular experience of parental neglect, alcoholism, and woman's loneliness. However, when I read it, I was surprised by how little the narrative actually focuses on these subjects. O'Faolain begins with her Dublin childhood in the forties and fifties, but moves on to evoke her working life as a lecturer, television producer and columnist. She describes Bohemian Dublin in the 1960s -- she and Patrick Kavanagh once both lived in Leland Bradwell's living room, for example -- and discusses the excessive drinking and lack of self-insight that was common at the time. O'Faolain was also a heavy drinker and skirts around her experiences with alcoholism and trying to give up drink. She also described her fifteen-year relationship with Nell McCafferty, although in a circumspect way, never divulging what it meant to her to be in a relationship with a woman after decades of being with men. Overall, I found this book frustrating: O'Faolain seemed to skirt around the most pressing issues, and focuses too much on minor anecdotes about various different writers. However, I was interested that it had such a profound impact when it was first published, and I wondered if my generation is too used to everything being out in the open, and if I should have been more content to read between the lines. It is entertaining and easy to read.