PICK OF THE BUNCH
When it comes to millennial writers, Megan Nolan is one to watch
Acts of Desperation
Megan Nolan Hachette
Millennials have been around long enough that even the grumpiest middle-aged commentator can't pretend we're all the same any more. This is true of millennial writers, too, and in recent months a few battle lines have emerged. In one corner, there are the Sally Rooneys, poised and earnest. In the other, there are the Lauren Oylers — cynical, caustic and ready to lob a Molotov cocktail at anything that looks too sincere. But then there's Megan Nolan, the Irish journalist and essayist who has made her name with writing that's both deeply felt and seriously, spikily intelligent.
In her work for the New Statesman and elsewhere, she tackles the big themes — love, sex, loneliness, friendship — from a personal angle, as plenty of people do. What's distinctive is the precision with which she picks apart her emotions, even the contradictory or ignoble ones.
Acts of Desperation is narrated by a young woman — similar to Nolan in many respects — as she looks back on a dysfunctional relationship that scarred her early 20s. The story begins in 2012. She's living in Dublin, rudderless and often drunk (“I was hungover most mornings to some degree, and badly maybe twice a week”). Having tried various men, she is captivated by Ciaran: half-Irish, half-Danish, in possession of some killer cheekbones, and “the first man I worshipped.”
Ciaran is an almighty jerk. His affectations (“ratty fingerless gloves”) are just the start of it: he's touchy and patronizing, cruelly aloof one moment and controlling the next. But as he pushes her away, she stakes everything on keeping hold of him. Why?
As a portrait of love grown toxic, Acts of Desperation is gripping enough. The narrator and Ciaran eventually move in
together, and their flat becomes a Petri dish of warped power play. She cooks, cleans and puts up with his moods. But it's her unflinching self-interrogation that gives this novel its moral weight and complexity.
She challenges us, too. Isn't she complicit? Do we simply see her as a victim? There are no easy answers. Readers hoping for Rooney-esque consolations — a magazine commission or a massive scholarship to ease the pain — will be disappointed.
Nolan's style is elegant and unaffected.
Her narrator can be sharp-eyed and wide-eyed. Acts of Desperation feels entirely contemporary. There's social media and cyberstalking; there are desultory
hours spent reading “the Wikipedias of lesser-known serial killers.” What's refreshing is that the digital noise doesn't drown out everything else. As many young novelists tie themselves in knots over what to do about the internet, Nolan's approach feels like a way forward.
There are weaker points. A couple of pages read as though they've been yanked out of a column.
And, just occasionally, Nolan's emotional articulacy deserts her (addressing men who “wheedle” for sex, she says: “You have stolen ... what does not belong to you”). But she's the millennial author everyone should be watching right now.