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

Product Information

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.

Killer children. From MN’s research, the absence of emotionally warm home life is a leading causation. Unwanted nature of a pregnancy is often the reason for the mother’s disconnect from the child. Growing up on an “estate”(a term often suppressed these days because of negative connotations); unwanted pregnancy and the constraints on freedom to decide in Ireland; mental health. Nolan speaks from the heart. The journalism, and focus on minors committing the most awful crimes is a subject that fascinated Nolan, and is given real tabloid newspaper authenticity by her own experiences in a paper in London.

I am torn between rating this three or four stars, if I’m being honest. I quite like the premise of the novel, the set-up between a family with strained dynamics torn up in a murder case on the one hand and a journalist trying to make a story of it, of them, of their flaws was very interesting. however, at times it was difficult to get invested. it felt the point of a hostile journalist trying to spin "ordinary human failings" into a story of evil and monstrosity was beaten like a dead horse, so much so that I found myself disengaging from it. the story of the family, however, was quite compelling and naturally I am torn.

It was interesting to me that Nolan continued the theme of loneliness in the reflections of a seemingly very different character, journalist, Tom. It’s also a book about the absence of affection, and how that can mark you. It’s also about emigration and loneliness, about some of the issues facing women in Ireland.

the fear of ever being a burden on others and the dread of nobody ever paying attention to him” (125) What an unexpected sophomore novel from Megan Nolan. From the deeply personal, visceral, can’t-look-away-but-can’t-stop-reading Acts of Desperation, to this quiet, claustrophobic but compelling book. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month.

The secret is we’re a family, we’re just an ordinary family, with ordinary unhappiness like yours…..there is no secret Tom, or else there are hundreds of them, and none of them interesting enough for you.’ The Green family emigrated from Ireland to the UK amid a scandal but their quiet, reclusive existence is interrupted when a child goes missing on a council estate and the Green’s are instantly suspected. As Tom Hargreaves, a determined tabloid reporter who is trying to make a name for himself, happens upon the story as it is unfolding, he sweeps the naïve and impressionable family up and sequesters them away at the expense of the paper, all to ensure he gets the exclusive. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. Vintage has unveiled the second novel from Megan Nolan after publishing her début Acts of Desperation in 2021. We get the POV of Carmel (Lucy’s mother), Richie (Carmel’s brother) and Tom (Carmel’s father) as they pull apart the threads of their lives that brought the family to this point, from their origins in Waterford. This is a family story but also a commentary on social inequality and how the smallest of events can can tip an ordinary family into decline out of which it becomes nigh on impossible to claw.In this book, a young girl is murdered at a London housing estate, and another young girl in the complex, Lucy, is suspected of having committed the crime. Lucy is taken into questioning, and her family members - her young mother Carmel, her alcoholic uncle Richie, and her detached grandfather John - wait over a stretch of 24 hours in a hotel while she's being detained. During this time, Tom, a reporter, is on a mission to break this story, and speaks with the family members one-on-one to learn more about the events that unfolded, but also about the dynamics of their family. What we get, then, are long sections in the past, giving us pieces to understand how this poor, Irish family ended up in this situation in London.

Its not the first time I had become aware of this theme in Nolan’s book since the (unnamed) narrator in Acts of Desperation reflected ”I could not be alone happily” 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. Megan Nolan might just be one of my new favourite authors. It's always a bit scary reading the follow-up to an author's incredible debut, as was the case here. Acts of Desperation was tender and raw and so intense that I thought it would be hard to measure-up to that, but Ordinary Human Failings certainly did. Maybe measure-up isn't the right word though, because the two books do very different things. Whereas Acts of Desperation feels like an outpouring of vulnerable, overwhelming emotion focusing on the anguish of a woman desperately in love with an unavailable, manipulative man, Ordinary Human Failings felt detached, observant, and empathetic. A large part of that is due to Ordinary Human Failings' third person POV compared to the intense 'I' and 'me' of Acts of Desperation. Ordinary Human Failings also follows a family rather than an individual, giving us long sections where we dive into each family member's separate experience. This is the story of the murder of a little girl, Mia. A young woman of the neighborhood is suspected of the murder. They live in a poor community, so there’s class commentary throughout the novel (or what I read). In particular, you follow a journalist character who is covering the murder, and the patronizing way he approaches the people of the community is highlighted. The novel includes his articles, showing how the media smears the poor. The subject matter is tough and none of it is exactly a bundle of laughs. Megan Nolan doesn’t go in for fairy story endings for either her characters or the novel itself. The main theme of the book was well conveyed, and it is that devoting love, and time, to a child does not come easily to everybody.I’m sure I’m not alone in being slightly anxious that the story was going to be taken up with the death of a young child, but the story doesn’t go down that road. Rather, it’s a book about the secrets that people carry around with them, the private suffering hidden just below the surface. Carmel O rdinary Human Failings is an ensemble piece focused on the adult siblings Carmel and Richie Green and their parents, Rose and John. At the end of the 1970s, the shame of Carmel’s teenage pregnancy prompts the family to move from Waterford in Ireland to a London housing estate.