Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland
Mia Gallagher
[New Island Books]
Powerful, intrepid and experimental, Mia Gallagher’s second novel is quite a serious piece of work. At 500 pages, it is a big book with even bigger themes: transsexuality, grief, genocide, cancer, memory, time, space… luckily Gallagher possesses both playfulness and adroit skill in handling volatile materials. The way she manages to draw disparate themes together is astounding. For what could the following have in common: a terrorist bombing of the London Underground; an elderly German woman being interviewed on her past expulsion from newly-liberated Czechoslovakia; the protagonist Georgia in contemporary Dublin, recording audio messages to her estranged father, David; Georgia’s childhood in 1970s Ireland; Lotte, the family’s hired ‘help’ who became much more to them for a few life-altering months; and a tour of an exhibit of Curiosities taking place in a parallel universe.
Gallagher describes her book as “a strange Cubist structure”. This work is fragmented, as though blown apart, with the elements shifting and rotating like space-junk. Refrains and symbols that permeate and connect singular narratives include: rosary beads; the smell of almonds (gelignite) and bergamot; spectral hauntings of the main characters; monsters and myths. The reader must work to trace the intricate logic underlying the chaos. Although thematically coherent, the connections are often tenuous, and some disunity remains. Yet ultimately, Gallagher’s warm, outstanding characterisation holds this impressive novel together.
Words: Maryam Madani
