Confessions

The blurb for Catherine Airey’s Confessions promises an involving tale of two Irish sisters, one of whom emigrates to New York to take up an art school scholarship ticking two of my literary boxes. Máire and Rósín’s stories span several decades beginning in the 1970s when they’re growing up in an Irish village not far from the house which one will paint and the other will eventually live in, making it the setting for a choose-your-own-adventure computer video game.
It opens in 2001 with Máire’s daughter before winding back to her sister Rósín in the ‘70s and ending with Máire’s granddaughter in 2023 after passing the narrative baton back and forth. Each section is prefaced with a scenario from Scream School, the computer video game which Rósín wrote based on the stories she and her sister wove around the house they were fascinated by. Airey smoothly unfolds this complicated, puzzle of a story, pieces of which click satisfyingly into place, largely through the distinctive voices of its female characters, exploring a multitude of themes along the way. To say more about the plot would be to ruin it. There’s a coincidence that may irritate some, but I was so immersed by then that I was more than happy to continue the ride. A long, intricately plotted, luxurious read, perfect for long evenings in January when it’s due to be published