One of the absolutely superior things about romance fiction is its brevity. After all, why put off true love any longer than you're contractually obligated to? Mills & Boon books are likeable because they never strain beyond the bare minimum, but there are many romances that don't belong to the Harlequin canon. It seems everybody is at it, and typically of women, they don't consider brevity a redeeming feature. Nora Roberts, who we'll get to eventually, and those of her ilk, weigh in with hefty tomes, sometimes even going so far as to insist upon plot and depth to stretch their stories out. The reading of such novels can seem like a daunting task. You set out and realise you're in this relationship for the long haul. At first everything is great, it's so romantic and so much better than that last book you read. That book didn't care about you, not like this new one does. Then, naturally, you're one hundred pages in and still nothing has really changed...
The book thinks you remain in the first chapter and acts accordingly. Shouldn't we have moved past this stage, you think. Shouldn't the book be describing kinky sexual acts by now? Shouldn't you have met the main character's parents? And yet, as you flick to the end and check the page number, you note, with some dismay, that there are still three hundred pages to slog through. Jeez, you think. Won't this book shut up and let you sleep? Imagine relative delight then, when you find a romance novel that was over by page 104, printed with a large font and double-spaced. Just the kind of book for the mood you are in. Imagine your continuing displeasure, however, as you read Maggie's Story. This story of someone named Maggie isn't to be confused with Maggie's Story by Dandi Daley Mackall, which somehow updates the tale of Mary Magdalene into rural Ohio. Still, we should keep a look out for a copy of that one.
No, the Maggie in question here isn't just any old Maggie. She is Maggie, a nobody housewife aged forty-three. She's married to a man named Dan. Dan is a mechanic. Maggie and Dan have been married for twenty-two years and have two children. A twenty-year-old son, Tom, he works in retail and is unhappy and a daughter, Diana, a carefree sixteen-year-old whom Maggie constantly reminds us is beautiful, stunning and very attractive, even though sixteen year olds are too young to be found sexually alluring. You hear that, internet?
Maggie has a part-time job doing something that may not be a real job. From what the author suggests Maggie goes door-to-door asking people questions about their life, career and income, as some sort of government monitoring scheme. No one in the novel appears bothered by this, so let us assume, as we have always assumed, that Ireland is weird. Despite the rich, full variety of her life, Maggie is weary, bored and miserable. She feels under-valued at home, unloved and aimless, as if life passes her by. As the writer, Sheila O'Flanagan, so perceptively remarks, 'Blokes didn't really do things like bring you flowers and tell you they loved you. Blokes expected you to believe that the fact that they lived with you was proof enough.' Tsk. Blokes! Right, ladies?
Then, with all seeming lost, the blurb mentions a chance encounter that will offer Maggie the opportunity to question whether or not she is truly happy. In the novel, this random meeting appears to be with an author named Flora O'Brien, who lends Maggie a romance book she once wrote, entitled A Crazy Heart. Maggie reads this book, and in doing so neglects her family. But to hell with making them dinner and showing them attention. Maggie is entranced. She loves the romance, even though the story contains no romance, and begins to compare the protagonist with herself, and the glamorous locations of the novel with her kitchen. She quickly decides Fictional Female Character is beautiful and has a bevy of desirable men to choose from, and that this is very different from her situation, where she only has an indifferent husband, in his forties.
This potentially meaningless existential drama is challenged by a second chance encounter, this time with a forty-something single father named Chris. Meeting for a second time in the supermarket, Chris offers to show Maggie a good, platonic time. They go to the beach and then onto the cinema, where they take in that romantic classic, Enemy of the State, because Maggie likes Will Smith, and Chris likes Gene Hackman. That is genuinely what the book tells us.
Will Maggie cheat on Dan and start a new life with Chris, because he paid her a compliment? No. Instead she'll completely flip out when her husband asks, 'What's for dinner?' and run upstairs in a mood. Spaghetti was the answer she was looking for. Dan, Diana and Tom take this stifled breakdown and non-committal accusation of mistreatment as a sign they should show more appreciation of Maggie and all she does for them. The next day on returning from work instead of asking the customary, 'What's for dinner?' Dan asks, 'How was your day?' and Maggie senses an enforced change, which she accepts as good enough. But no, Maggie. There's more. Your family has also bought you a Ford Fiesta. Oh, happy ending indeed. If it sounds as if the ending makes no sense, that isn't due to my hopeless attempt of relaying the story. A cynical person might imply that this conclusion glorifies shallow consumerism. Maggie's mid-life crisis is solved with the buying of a product she doesn't need. While that is the case, I'd prefer to believe there was more to this book than such a sweeping generalisation. Let us instead believe Maggie's Story is badly written and the ending is stupid.
Maggie's relatively selfish behaviour effects a modification in the actions of those around her. Therefore it is those around her who learn a lesson. The lesson being to bow to those who demand to be treated better. O'Flanagan goes to great lengths to make Maggie sympathetic and likeable, pointing out that Maggie loves her children and doesn't regret having them. Well, that's something, at least. Now, no one means to understate the immensity of the courageous, selfless act of motherhood (Hello, Mothers), but the book just can't get away from separating Maggie's problems from her life. She realises that she is lucky to have the life she has. All she misses is youth and the romance of blossoming love. Where does the romance go? she asks. Romance is for the young, says Dan, but he is wrong. He means vitality. Vitality is for the young. Romance can literally be bought, so romance should be for everyone who can afford it, as we later witness with the bounty of a Ford Fiesta. Maggie doesn't get romance in the sense she seeks, but she gets a car, which is better. Cars go broom-broom. Romance just goes.
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