William Wall: Alice Falling

Hodder Moa Beckett

$24.95

Review: Cheryl Pearl Sucher*

The Kiwi pundits who revere contemporary Ireland as the model of an agrarian society that has prospered in this technological age might think again about their adulation after reading William Wall's short first novel.

Wall's Ireland is an existential nation propelled by greed and haunted by its history of repression and ceaseless violence. Its priests are twisted, its academics helpless, its sports heroes have faded into impotence, and its women (forgive me) are either Madonnas or whores.

Though Wall's intention is admirable, his narrative rapidly loses its conviction as it spirals uncontrollably towards an inevitable bloody conclusion.

As I read on, I kept asking myself: "Is there no way out?" That is the point. None of the characters inhabiting this bleak landscape can thwart their ill-fated destiny.

We meet our protagonist, the very married and very beautiful Alice Lynch, in bed with John, her new, younger lover who is studying philosophy at the university. Alice looks up from bed and sees a gray stain on the ceiling that she thinks looks like the map of Ireland. The novel moves only metaphorically from there. Alice never transcends the stereotype of ice queen, but we are led to believe that her coldness is not her fault.

Through her stream-of-consciousness recollection, we learn that as a young girl she was routinely victimised by her parish priest, who forced her to confess to sexual desires that she never harboured, then to act out those desires on himself.

No one saved Alice from this perpetual damnation as her mother was depressed and useless and her dying father entrusted her guardianship to this clergyman. We later learn that her father died indirectly of the grief suffered after her older sister, Sheila, was decapitated by an articulated lorry while fleeing the licentious interest of the same priest.

To escape despair, Alice marries a software tycoon, Paddy, who is 10 years her senior. We soon learn that Paddy was the secret lover of Alice's dead sister Sheila.

This doomed couple is shadowed by a similarly fated pair: Mitch, the revered "hurler" who has matured into an impotent insurance salesman, and his wife, Nora, who was once stunning, but who fell for Paddy and lost him and her mind at about the same time.

There are no children in this world or anything resembling a healthy familial or sexual relationship. There are dead cats on mantelpieces and scenes of disturbing sexual violence.

The strength of the book lies in its early moments of reflection and reverie. The lovers are compelling, as are Alice's powerful memories of her fateful rides home from gym practice. But when the symbolism starts to determine the plot, the book falls apart. Characters and dialogue descend into cliche. My suspicion is that the author lost interest and that his atmospheric, subtle writing is best suited to the short story.

Like Alice, his story has spiralled out of control, falling irretrievably down the well.

* Cheryl Pearl Sucher is a Dunedin writer.