“The Queen of Dirt Island”

The Queen of Dirt Island, by Donal Ryan, is a unique picture of growing up–coming of age–in Ireland. It’s the story of four women, four generations, who live in a small house together, told in short vignettes. Narrated mostly by Saoirse, it takes us through her growing up with her mother and grandmother (her deceased father’s mother) and then giving birth to a daughter when she was seventeen. The style is almost flat, simply telling one small story after another, but by the end we realize that what we have is a life, very much like life itself–a series of short incidents, no one of which has an oversized impact but which together add up to the person she becomes. It moved at a leisurely pace–not a page-turner!–but as I got to know the characters they were more like friends, and I wanted to know each day how they were doing. And they have stayed with me. Especially compelling is the idea that a life is not an arc, nor is it something planned and plotted, but rather a progression of incidents that ultimately make us who we are.