Edna O’Brien, The Little Red Chairs, Faber 2016; 2015¹

The only other fiction by Edna O’Brien (1930-2024) that I recall reading is The Country Girls trilogy of novels, published in the early 1960s. They famously caused outrage in establishment Ireland for their frank depiction of sexuality, and in particular female sexuality. At that time the deeply Catholic country wasn’t ready for such transgressive and challenging fiction about social and religious restrictions and attitudes that she portrayed as stifling and unhealthy – especially for women.

The Little Red Chairs is one of her last novels, and is very different from that early trilogy, not surprisingly. It’s formally inventive, with a narrative that shifts tenses and focus abruptly. Thematically and in content it also veers from one apparent genre to another, producing some startling contrasts.

It begins with what could be described as an old-fashioned comical account of goings-on in a sleepy rural Irish village. There are bar bores and eccentrics that wouldn’t be out of place in the fiction of James Joyce (albeit not with the mindset of Dubliners). Into this unsuspecting setting arrives a charismatic East European self-styled faith healer who calls himself ‘Dr Vladimir’.

Here the narrative develops into an offbeat romance. His landlady, Fidelma, unhappy in her unfulfilling marriage, unwisely falls for him, and sets out to seduce him. He’s unchivalrously open to her advances.

Then things take a very sinister turn. His true identity is revealed, and Fidelma’s life is blown up. She finds herself working as an office cleaner in London, at times sleeping rough or in insalubrious hostels. Some people show her kindness, but others are happy to exploit her. This section is a powerful indictment of the iniquities of urban capitalism and endemic racism/sexism.

The final part of the novel moves into yet another mode – which I won’t go into here to avoid spoilers. I hope it’s not giving too much away to point out that the title refers to the placing, in April 2012, of 11,541 red chairs on a Sarajevo street to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the siege of that city by Bosnian Serb forces – one empty chair for every citizen killed during the 1425 days of that terrible time. The children who died were represented by 643 smaller chairs.

It’s a novel that I found difficult to place. Maybe because of these subversive shifts of tone and plot, and the slippery narrative voice(s). The powerful impact of its central and final sections was undermined by the incongruously comical opening. It was too much of a stretch for me, ultimately, to accept the central plot premise – although it’s also, oddly, a brilliant concept. Perhaps that’s the problem: it’s too high-concept. It was very highly praised on publication, so I’m in a minority in responding less enthusiastically.