‘When we look beyond the headlines, everyone has a story to tell…’

The long awaited second novel from the mega talent Megan Nolan has arrived! Nolan has such a compelling way of writing, skilfully teasing you with tantalising nuggets and drawing you into the story until you are completely immersed.

This is quite a departure from her first novel Acts of Desperation and Nolan has grown in both confidence and skill as she dextrously handles multiple characters and narrative threads, weaving them together into a satisfying conclusion.

Sad and moving, this captures a certain time in the history of Ireland and particularly what it meant to come of age as a girl at a time where there were so few options available to young women. Claustrophobic small town life is juxtaposed with the loneliness and anonymity of life in London.

I think where Nolan excels is in delving into the interior lives of women - both Carmel and Rose were exceptionally well rounded characters and I thought Nolan handled their stories beautifully. The same for the brother Richie, which I found poignant and moving. The crime element seemed more of a hook than anything else to develop the inner lives of this working class Irish family in London and wasn’t the main driving narrative force in itself.

Nolan has a knack for picking great titles and I absolutely adore the cover too. I’ll be looking forward to seeing what she comes out with next.

Set in the 90’s, Ordinary Human Failings is the story of a disfunctional Irish family living on an estate in England, When a young girl on their estate goes missing and is later found dead, suspicion falls on the family, who are subsequently taken to a safe house by a young journalist, with the hope that this story will propel him to greatness! A brilliantly told and compelling but really dark and sad read.

What seems to be a simple story is lifted by compelling, artful writing and the author's genuine sympathy for her characters. A moving , memorable read

When a young girl is found dead on an estate in 1990, the prime suspect is 10-year-old Lucy Green. Journalist Tom Hargreaves decides to investigate the family and find out what happened.

The Green’s are an Irish family living in London and through flashbacks and current day snippets we discover more about the family. Daughter Carmel, son Richie and John their dad.

This book is seriously bleak, it looks at classism in the UK and how Irish people were treated in England back in the 90s. Megan Nolan is a brilliant writer and she completely brings you into the world of the Green family and each of their struggles.

Such a good read. A short novel at less than 250 pages, telling the story of the aftermath of a young child's death in London. Another child is arrested on suspicion of murder - a child from an Irish family who have a bad reputation on the estate where the incident occurs. A junior newspaper report gets wind of this and sets out to be the first to scoop the headlines. His newspaper puts the family of the accused into a small hotel, and he stays with them, plying them with drink and a "shoulder to cry on" in the hope of getting the juicy backstory.
And he does extract the backstory - but it isn't the tabloid fodder he wants - instead it is - as the title of the novel suggests - Ordinary human failings.
A brilliantly told and pretty heart-breaking at times. The impact that a childhood can have on the rest of your lives. Highly recommend this one.

London, 1990. Mia Enright, three years old, vanishes without a trace in the Skyler Square housing estate. Her body is discovered sixteen hours later, not far from where she was last seen playing the day before.

Tom Hargreaves, a Daily Herald reporter, comes across the story by chance when he goes home with Ruth, a waitress he met a few weeks earlier. As luck would have it Ruth lived in Skyler Square, so Tom sees an opportunity to get his scoop.

Full review: https://westwordsreviews.wordpress.com/2023/07/24/ordinary-human-failings-megan-nolan/

When little Mia Enright is found dead in a South London housing estate, suspicion quickly turns to the Green family. Reclusive, aloof and the epitome of the British idea of the undeserving poor, the fact that Mia was last seen with ten-year-old Lucy Green just corroborates what the neighbours already thought about the family and Lucy is quickly branded a baby killer. What else could anyone expect from that family? Ambitious young reporter Tom finds himself serendipitously at the scene when Mia goes missing and, sensing that this could be his big break, hurriedly sequesters the Greens in a hotel, ostensibly for their own protection but who could blame him for taking advantage of this exclusive access? Did Lucy really kill Mia? Why? As Tom uses his every journalistic trick to persuade Lucy's family to confide in him, he begins to unravel generations of trauma and unhappiness and forces the Greens to confront their troubled history.

Ordinary Human Failings feels like it's not entirely sure what kind of book it wants to be. From the opening, I assumed it was going to be a thriller which culminated in a big reveal about the circumstances surrounding Mia's death and, probably, a shocking twist regarding the identity of her killer. But Megan Nolan's sophomore offering is actually far more than this; it is a sad, sensitive exploration of the mundane tragedies of ordinary people and how the course of our lives can be shaped by a gradual erosion as much as by a seismic event. Like Tom, the reader comes to realise that the questions they were desperate to have answered were not necessarily the most important ones to ask.

Nolan uses the framework of the Greens telling their histories to Tom to craft deft, sympathetic portrayals of a set of characters who aren't usually afforded much empathy or grace, either in fiction or in reality - the pathetic drunk, the bad mother, the distant father, the child who kills. Even the parasitic journalist is somewhat humanised.

I found the ending slightly anti-climactic; given the tone the author had striven to establish throughout the novel, it felt unnecessary to shift that in order to end on a more hopeful note for the reader.

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage Books for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

Ordinary Human Failings is the story of an Irish expat family living in an estate in England, having left their home in a hurry to avoid a scandal. When a toddler on their estate goes missing and the young daughter of the Irish family is seen to be the last person to have seen the missing toddler, suspicion follows the family and they are taken to a safe house by a young journalist out to find his big story to propel him to greatness. But this novel doesn't follow the usual trajectory of a missing child. Instead we learn about each member of the family and the secrets they hide.

An unusual read but not one I found particularly gripping. I guessed early on the family's secret although the emphasis was on their individual reactions to it and how their life panned out in England. Rather a sad tale and I would have liked a little more depth to the characters. The title is most apt. Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Vintage/Jonathan Cape for the opportunity to read and review Ordinary Human Failings.

Impressive and sad story about growing up in an estate, class, poverty, alcoholism, trauma throughout generations, and shame. Where you grow up, what family you come from, what class you are; this all forms you and determines the opportunities you’ll get in life, and your future. It’s almost impossible to change the life you was born into. It’s what you know, what you’ve learned and experienced. Nolan writes about all this with great insight and empathy, and this novel really moved me. I thought the character of Tom wasn’t of great importance to the story though.
Thank you Random House UK and Netgalley for the ARC.

With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

This is a well crafted, utterly miserable story of the venality and helplessness of humankind. When a child is killed on a south London estate, the finger of blame is pointed collectively at the troubled Irish family who keep themselves to themselves. Scenting a scoop, journalist Tom Hargreaves swoops in and spirits the family away to a hotel where he plays on their weaknesses to weasel their back story out of them.

Whilst appreciating the undeniable craft of the author, the characters completely failed to engage me. I found the writing style quite aggravating too - there is a lot of what reads like introspection, but given how inarticulate the main characters are, it was hard to suspend disbelief in the possibility that they had such a well developed (not to mention suspiciously uniform) inner voice. There is a shred of hope for the future, but over all I found this an unremittingly depressing read. It is short but felt like it went on for ever. Extremely well written but not for me I'm afraid.

Ordinary Human Failings by Meghan Nolan is an intense, introspective view of an Irish family that find themselves living in London following a family crisis.

Carmel is teenage mother to Lucy, born as a result of an unplanned pregnancy. Her mother, father and brother all leave Waterford behind to raise the child in a less conspicuous environment. Following an incident with another child, a newspaper journalist is required to dig into their background for a story. After some probing, the family members discuss their troubles and how they came to be where they are.

Nolan very skillfully exposes the character flaws in each of the family members voicing their innermost thoughts. This alternative viewpoint adds another layer to the compelling narrative. Excellent read!

This book is about an ordinary family with ordinary unhappiness like all other families. Yet tragedy, dysfunctional relationships and life’s hardships move unhappy events towards tragic conclusions that are unbearable to everyone involved. Hard times result in an Irish family moving to England for a better life. What occurs is a fatality that sets off a chain of events that could destroy the strongest of families not withstanding the vulnerability of our protagonists beaten down by the hardest of circumstances. A reporter, hungry for a scoop locks them away to interview, interrogate and discover the potential secrets that have led to the calamitous events and outcomes. Perhaps potentially the culmination of a family damaged beyond repair towards total disintegration. Have they the inner strength to come back from the abyss or will there be a light at end of their dark tunnel of life. Very sad, often tragic with well written expertly portrayed three dimensional characters each with huge strengths, debilitating weaknesses and a force for survival . This gives the story a haunting pathos that draws the reader to care about each one and a hunger for what appears to be the impossible happy ending. Many thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

What an unexpected sophomore novel from Megan Nolan. From the deeply personal, visceral, can’t-look-away-but-can’t-stop-reading Acts of Desperation, to this quiet, claustrophobic but compelling book.

Ordinary Human Failings is a third person narrative about an ordinary family damaged by a series of very mundane, personal tragedies. The same quality of writing is there but this is a very different, more mature type of book to Acts of Desperation.

When a child goes missing on a London estate in 1990, the finger of blame is pointed by residents at Lucy, the young child of a reclusive Irish immigrant family. Tabloid journalist Tom Hargreaves happens upon the scene and attempts to turn it to his advantage by exploiting the family for his own journalistic gain.

We get the POV of Carmel (Lucy’s mother), Richie (Carmel’s brother) and Tom (Carmel’s father) as they pull apart the threads of their lives that brought the family to this point, from their origins in Waterford. This is a family story but also a commentary on social inequality and how the smallest of events can can tip an ordinary family into decline out of which it becomes nigh on impossible to claw.

If I had a criticism, it’s that I didn’t love the inclusion of Tom’s character. While I appreciate the perspective offered by the tabloid media angle, Tom felt somewhat shoehorned into what was already a very strong family story. A gloomy, oppressive story, definitely not a poolside read, but with hints of hope and shades of Claire Keegan. 3.5-4/5⭐️

*Many thanks to the author, publisher @vintagebooksuk and @netgalley for the early copy. Ordinary Human Failings was published on Thursday. As always, this is an honest review.*

With this her second novel, Megan Nolan cements her position as a writer of great skill and talent. I read Acts of Desperation and it was an unflinching difficult read. I felt claustrophobic and uncomfortable when reading and yet couldn't put it down . I could see its merits without necessarily saying I enjoyed it.

Ordinary Human Feelings while equally as dark and brutal is a very different book. I felt I could read it at more of a remove and this allowed me to appreciate this book more and also impressed me that this book was so different to her first and made me look forward to what she turns her pen to next.

The book is set in 1990's London. Tom is a tabloid reporter and there is a young child missing in an run down estate where The Greens live. The Greens are an an Irish family who moved over to London some years previously to get away from some trouble at home. When the missing child is found dead, eyes turn to the Green family, Tom sees his opportunity to get the story and gets the small and broken family to a hotel where he believes he will find out the truth, get the scoop and get the accolades.

What starts out as a mystery as to what happens the child turns into so much more. Its a story of intergenerational trauma, infidelity, grief, the misery and desolation of 1980's Ireland, tales so familiar they are ordinary and of the consequences that can happen because of them and how people are often powerless to prevent the failings from happening over and over. The story is told from multiple points of view as the full picture is unveiled and its a gripping one.

Megan Nolan can write. She impresses me but yet again this is a book I can say I appreciated rather than enjoyed and it did leave me again wit a cloying sense of sadness. Which is a powerful ability to be able to evoke with words. One to approach when you are in the right frame of mind for it, A brilliant portrayal of an ordinary family failed by history and circumstance.

4-4.5 star

An Intimate Portrait of Ordinary Human Failings

Set in the 1990s, we follow the Green family who have moved to London from Ireland amid a scandal and looking for a ‘fresh start’.

Tom, a reporter, stumbles onto their estate and across a career-making scoop - a young child is missing.

In the suspicions that follow, the family are moved to a hotel by Tom in the hopes of being the first to get the story. In the confines of their rooms they begin to reflect on their lives.

An quiet novel that doesn’t play out how you think it will, Nolan’s sophomore novel is brilliant. Each character is richly and believably drawn. The plot, which risks being cliche or sensational, is lightly woven throughout the novel as we see more of the characters’ pasts. In this respect, it subverted my expectations in a way that was reminiscent of Jeffrey Euginides.

One of the best books I’ve read this year.

Pick up this book up if: you wish Broadchurch was less about the ‘whodunnit’ and more about the ‘why’

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Tom is a reporter who hears about a toddler going missing on a London council estate. When the fingers are pointed at a troubled Irish immigrant family, and in particular their young daughter, he is gleeful that he might get a ‘scoop‘.

This isn‘t about the child‘s disappearance but about the family background; how they ended up where they did.

I‘d have liked to learn more about Tom himself and I didn‘t feel much of a connection with many of the other characters; it did feel a bit like a newspaper report written from a distance. I liked how it ended though, with no easy glib answers but still a resolution of sorts for the main characters.

I zipped through Acts of Desperation in a day so was really anticipating reading Ordinary Human Failings and wow, what an incredibly different book. That I also zipped through in a day!

Tom is a ~journalist~ always trying to sniff out the next big scoop. When he stumbles into a story unfolding in front of him, that of a missing and then dead child, he can hardly believe his luck. His digging quickly leads him to the Green family - Irish immigrants that the neighbours aren't particularly keen on. Much of the suspicion is centred around Lucy, the 10 year old daughter of young mother Carmel.

Close to the start of this book we get Tom's POV which I had very little interest in. Thankfully this book becomes the Green's story very quickly and we get a look into their past from three members of the family - Carmel, her brother Richie and their dad John. This is not a murder mystery, it's not even really the point. It's a look at the complex lives of this family and how they got to this moment.

I thought this was excellent. Megan Nolan is a really beautiful writer and brings so much depth to these characters in a relatively short space of time.

The ugliness and vulnerability of humankind laid raw in this intimate thriller by Megan Nolan.
This is an author I want to keep an eye on in the future.

I really liked Megan Nolan's novel Acts of Desperation about a dysfunctional and toxic relationship between two young adults. This book is also about dysfunction and toxic relationships, this time about generational dysfunction in an Irish family living in London in 1990. A young child on an estate has been found dead and an ambitious young journalist, Tom, happens by chance to be the first on the scene and realises the potential of the story and so can convince single mother, Carmel and her father and brother to come under his newspaper's protection in a "safe" guest house when her 11 year old daughter is taken in for questioning by the police. Tom seeks to interview each family member in turn and we discover their stories and the demons that are haunting them and how their ordinary human failings have led to ordinary human unhappiness and how they have come to "fail" the youngest member of the family. I liked how the narrative doesn't go down the usual paths you might expect but is more nuanaced. I did wonder how much Megan Nolan's own experience of journalism informed Tom's behaviour.

London 1990 and a young reporter called Tom is on the trail of an emotive and shocking story - a young child has been found dead on a housing estate. Attention has turned to the Green family - Irish immigrants who keep themselves to themselves but have always seemed a bit odd. Suspicion in particular falls on Lucy, seen playing with young Mia before she disappeared.

I’m sure I’m not alone in being slightly anxious that the story was going to be taken up with the death of a young child, but the story doesn’t go down that road. Rather, it’s a book about the secrets that people carry around with them, the private suffering hidden just below the surface.

Carmel is very much at the centre of the book, mother of Lucy and the reason why the family moved from Waterford to London in the first place. Richie is her half brother, who struggles with drink and finding a direction in life. Her father is John, distant and troubled by events in his own past. Mother Rose is the glue holding the family together.

Alongside the events in London, as the investigation continues, we learn about the lives of each of the characters in Waterford before they moved to London. This is skilfully done, shedding light on where we find them in the book.

There’s a scene in the book where Richie goes on the drink, and you can see exactly what’s going to happen. It’s a bit of a minor heartbreak that you know decides the direction that lives can take. It’s a perfectly described scene that had me feeling the fear even before Richie did.

‘A feeling of contentment and buoyancy came over him and he felt proud of himself for not having a drink, and this clean good feeling made him want a drink’.

It’s often quoted, but Tolstoys ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’ really resonates in this book. And as Carmel says to Tom at one stage

‘The secret is we’re a family, we’re just an ordinary family, with ordinary unhappiness like yours…..there is no secret Tom, or else there are hundreds of them, and none of them interesting enough for you.’

It’s also a book about the absence of affection, and how that can mark you. It’s also about emigration and loneliness, about some of the issues facing women in Ireland.

There’s so much accurate in this book, that really resonated with me, and I don’t think it’s just particular to Irish families. One of the characters talks about not rushing from the table after dinner, but staying to talk, exchange morsels of information about the day gone. Simply acknowledging each other.

One of the things I really liked about this book is that you really feel that some of the characters change. It’s fine for an author to say that a character has developed, but I really felt that Carmel reached an understanding, that there was a growth from her experiences. It felt both natural and satisfying. In the same vein, another of the characters didn’t, and disappeared into his own personal, comfortable sadness, and that felt genuine too.

For that reason I found it a bittersweet ending, some of the characters growing in awareness, even if it was caused by ‘the extreme pressure of crisis’, but there is also the realisation that ‘the things you did or failed to do could not be erased by anything, not even love’. I would say that though I felt for the characters on occasions, they didn't quite click with me; I was never fully engaged with them, except for Carmel who I did feel for.

I found this to be a superbly written book, and found myself rereading many of the passages. It has a great pace to it, and I often found myself slowing down to enjoy it that bit more. The writing has such a natural flow, the language precise and succinct. I had of course see many of the plaudits for Megan’s previous book ‘Acts of desperation’, which I admit to having bought back in 2021, but it got lost in my glut of amazon downloads. It’s something that I’ll be putting right soon, having been really impressed with this, her second book.

Thanks to Random House Vintage and Netgalley for the ARC