Stevie‘s review of The Magdalen Girls by V.S. Alexander
Historical Fiction published by Kensington 27 Dec 16
I suspect the history of the Magdalen Laundries is better known on this side of the Atlantic than in the US; although similar institutions (sometimes using the same nomenclature) did exist over there, the majority were located in Ireland, and that is where this story is set. Originally established with the aim of reforming prostitutes, by the mid-twentieth century the laundries had become a dumping ground for unmarried mothers-to-be, unruly teenagers, and other young women who attempted to defy society’s conventions or their families’ rules on behaviour. Three such girls are Teagan, Nora, and Lea.
Teagan comes from an outwardly respectable middle-class family, although their public façade hides the reality of her alcoholic father and weak, abused mother. Teagan has a boyfriend, but he comes from a Protestant family in contrast to Teagan’s own Catholic upbringing. At a party to welcome the new priest, Teagan finds herself alone with the young man; while she flirts a little, and imagines what would happen were he not a priest, nothing improper happens. Teagan’s father, however, becomes suspicious, and when the new priest tells his mentor that he felt tempted by Teagan, the older men conspire to send Teagan away to a Magdalen Laundry.
While Teagan is still unaware of her planned fate, over on the other side of Dublin in a much less affluent area, Nora is planning to run away to London with her boyfriend. Her plans fall through when he confesses to having met someone else, and Nora’s attempts to win him back are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of her father. Scandalised by her behaviour, he also decides to send her away – and she arrives at the Laundry on the same night as Teagan.
At their new home, the girls are given new names and new clothes, as well as having their hair shorn off and told of the punishments in store for them should they disobey the nuns who will oversee their every movement. Initially put to work sorting and laundering clothes, Teagan, in particular, is promised more prestigious work should she manage to prove herself to the sisters. One girl who has done so is Lea, who has been an inmate so long that she has almost forgotten her name. She becomes the third member of the group of friends; while she has no desire to leave the Laundry, she is happy to help Teagan and Nora with their plans to return to Dublin.
This is, understandably, quite a bleak book, which includes in the girls’ stories a number of examples of well-known scandals from real life Laundries. While we meet a number of different nuns, only the mother superior has any real backstory – lending a degree of sympathetic portrayal to an otherwise unsympathetic character – and we never really find out to what extent the events of the book truly change her attitude to her charges as a while. My other niggle with the book was that while some details felt spot-on, based on knowledge gleaned from my Irish friends, other pieces of description felt out of place in 1960s Ireland: I don’t think candied beets are the same thing as pickled beetroot; while tinned sweetcorn (we don’t call it corn on this side of the Atlantic!) was available in the UK (and presumably Ireland) in 1960, I can’t see it being an institutional food so early when soggy carrots were more readily available; I don’t remember any of my Irish friends mentioning having a post box at the edge of their garden for mail to be delivered into, rather than a letterbox in the main door.
All in all a disappointingly average book, when I was expecting something a little more ground-breaking.
Grade: C
Summary:
Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city’s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are “fallen” women—unwed mothers, prostitutes, or petty criminals. Most are ordinary girls whose only sin lies in being too pretty, too independent, or tempting the wrong man. Among them is sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan, sent by her family when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest.
Teagan soon befriends Nora Craven, a new arrival who thought nothing could be worse than living in a squalid tenement flat. Stripped of their freedom and dignity, the girls are given new names and denied contact with the outside world. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has secrets of her own, inflicts cruel, dehumanizing punishments—but always in the name of love. Finally, Nora and Teagan find an ally in the reclusive Lea, who helps them endure—and plot an escape. But as they will discover, the outside world has dangers too, especially for young women with soiled reputations.
Told with candor, compassion, and vivid historical detail, The Magdalen Girls is a masterfully written novel of life within the era’s notorious institutions—and an inspiring story of friendship, hope, and unyielding courage.
No excerpt available.
