I have long championed Maggie O’Farrell. I truly believe she is one of our most brilliant yet least celebrated living authors; I find it incomprehensible, for example, that she has never been long-listed (let alone shortlisted) for the Booker Prize. I am certain that, like many female authors, O’Farrell suffers as a result of misogyny. Her novels are unashamedly concerned with subject matters which have traditionally been considered ‘feminine’ (and therefore less valuable) – family, home, romantic relationships – and handle these with appropriate seriousness and an elegant insight which is, at its best, breath-taking. This Must Be the Place, O’Farrell’s latest novel, is no exception. This kaleidoscopic work is constructed of a series of non-chronological vignettes told from the perspectives of a range of different characters all over the world. From these, the reader is able to deduce the portrait – in turns intimate and distant – of the relationship between Daniel, an academic specialising in linguistic development, and Claudette, a reclusive former actress.
One of the things that most stood out to me about this novel was the respect O’Farrell pays to even the most peripheral of her characters. When the narrative is told from the perspective of characters inconsequential to the story itself, we are nonetheless privy to their entire backstory, to their private motivations and pre-occupations; what they tell us about the lives of Daniel and Claudette is, to them at least, entirely incidental. By decentralising its protagonists in this way, the novel demonstrates the various multitude of stories which exist together in one place at any given moment. This is O’Farrell at the height of her powers: her crystal-clear prose is as engrossing as ever, her characters real, her story at once tiny and life-defining. I thoroughly recommend this book.
Maggie O’Farrell
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