Review: Falling for a Dancer by Deirdre Purcell

Deirdre Purcell is an Irish author, journalist and former theatre actor. Her novel Falling for a Dancer is a highly readable story about the middle-class daughter of a Cork solicitor during the Second World War. The novel, set mainly on the bleak and barren Beara Peninsula on Cork's western seaboard, is faintly reminiscent of Irish-American Frank McCourt's memoir Angela's Ashes about his childhood in wartime Limerick, but is free of the latter's misogyny and "holier-than-thou" hypocrisy. When McCourt's book was filmed, viewers were introduced to a grim dump of a city where it rained constantly by the bucketful, much to the chagrin of the inhabitants who were worried about the effect on tourism, but McCourt insisted that this was how he remembered the place was like. Purcell's Beara has similar precipitation levels, at least in the – considerably altered - film adaptation of her book, for which she wrote the script, but in the novel, the area can be mythical and even welcoming; after all, Purcell spent several years of her life here.

In some ways, Ireland is an ideal backdrop for feminist analysis. Until recently, the Republic was a quasi-ecclesiastical state, where the RC Church dominated politics, and where Christian Brothers educated boys, and nuns the girls. In the 1840s, Ireland was ravaged by famines caused by the failure of the potato crop, drastically reducing the population and causing a brain drain of emigration, primarily to the USA and Canada. The little help that came from mainland Britain (Ireland was then an integral part of the United Kingdom), reached the anglicised East of Ireland, which had a better supply of food in the first place whereas the poor and barren West, populated by subsistence farmers who were utterly dependent on an intensive, protein-rich crop which could be grown intensively on tiny portions of land, was devastated. At the same time, the ancient Irish language rapidly died out until only a few isolated pockets of speakers remained.

Deirdre Purcell's novel centres around strong-willed protagonist Elizabeth, AKA Lizzie/Beth and the four men in her life: George, Neely, Daniel and Mossie. Although wartime Ireland is neutral and peaceful, rationing is severe. Lizzie, just turned nineteen, is allowed to go on a trip with her friend Ida, and when their bus breaks down they go and see a touring company perform, after which Lizzie is subtly seduced by George, a tall and handsome actor, after which she discovers that she is pregnant. Lizzie chooses to keep the baby, but George has no intention of marrying her, and her bigoted mother, worried about the effect an illegitimate child would have on the reputation of Lizzie's father's law firm, forces her daughter to move out. Since the Magdalene Sisters, nuns who house and employ "fallen women", are no option for Lizzie, she reluctantly agrees to marry Neely, a much older widower with several children, move to the aforementioned Beara peninsula, and make the most of a difficult situation. The contrast is stark: the countryside around Cork City is wooded and green, whereas Beara is a barren, godforsaken outpost. Tilly, a married neighbour of Neely's, regularly looks after the children. Life is unfair: some women, including Tilly, are unable to have children, whereas others have to cope with illegitimate pregnancy or a never-ending succession of (legitimate) births. Tilly's original boyfriend emigrated across the Atlantic with the intention of subsequently financing her passage to America, but fell in love with a local woman, and Tilly was left behind in Beara. Similarly, Lizzie's dream of moving to Hollywood with George is unrealistic, because her first love is too poor an actor to "make it" abroad.

The issue of abortion is mentioned in the novel. Irish women "took the boat" to England for this purpose. In contrast, Frank McCourt's good-for-nothing father "took the boat" in Angela's Ashes for another reason: to find work in England with the intention of sending a portion of his earnings to the family in Ireland; an empty promise, as it turned out.

Purcell never attacks the Catholic church in her novel. We must bear in mind that the British Crown, which originally ruled Ireland, was Protestant, and that most of the Irish remained Roman Catholic. The latter was regarded as the Irish national church, defending the rights of the native people, and although a source of friction, it was, and still is, a comfort to many. Whatever Purcell's attitude may be, she leaves it to the reader to decide what they think of the institution. The priest in Beara on the one hand hunts young couples who hide in the bushes for a "quick snog", but is on the other hand extremely supportive of Elizabeth when her son Francey is badly injured and has to be rushed to hospital.

Elizabeth does not love her husband Neely, but she tries hard to live in harmony with him and her partly hostile stepchildren. When Daniel, an impulsive young local man, appears on the scene, Neely becomes jealous and the next disaster is imminent. Lizzie is a sensual, emotionally spontaneous woman, and to further complicate matters there is a further suitor in the shape of Mossie, a distant relative of Neely's.

Falling for a Dancer is not strictly a feminist novel; but it is food for thought as to how women in 1940s Ireland conformed to a patriarchal system based on land ownership, the practicality of relationships and the safeguarding of property for the following generations. Elizabeth at one stage cries out that she is not an object, but a woman with a mind of her own. She succumbs to her emotions and never breaks free from the restrictions society places on her, but she always retains a sense of dignity, taking great pride in the way she raises her children. After reading the novel, I couldn't help thinking that the evolution from a male-dominated feudal society into one of equal opportunities is a difficult ongoing process that needs to be honed and perfected if we are to do justice to these past generations of women.

The film version of Falling for a Dancer perfectly complements the book, although the storyline has been simplified by the author herself for adaptation to a different medium. A note to our German readers: the book was translated as Nur ein kleiner Traum, (Just a Small Dream), whereas the film version retains the original English-language title.