Before My Actual Heart Breaks: Tish Delaney

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Mary and John are both emotionally crippled and unable to talk to each other. Mary, as a result of the treatment she received from her mother and John from events in his past, which are not fully revealed to Mary (and the reader) until late in the book. There were times when I wanted to shake them both for their obtuseness, particularly Mary who stubbornly refused to reach out to John, missing so many opportunities to voice what she was feeling. John’s mother Bridie is a wonderful character, kind and gentle, creating a safe haven for Mary after she was thrown out of her family, and providing the glue to hold Mary and John together as their family grows. I wanted to be the one he was paying attention to, just once. Sometimes it felt as if the fabric of the sofa had grown over me and no one had noticed. For this reason, I don’t think the reader can trust any of the epiphanies our protagonist has. The sex she has aged 16, after which she becomes pregnant, is, to her “the first chance I’ve had in sixteen years to do what I want”. It should feel transgressive and feminist, but it doesn’t quite come off. The man who takes her virginity is older and in a position of relative power. In the Republic, it would be classed as statutory rape. Mary is bright, she has the drive and ability to fly away from her home; her abusive mammy and passive dada, the church and the petrifying violence of that time - but one mistake renders her powerless and her life is changed forever - she doesn't get that escape and is left to face her darkest fears

Her mother forces Mary into a shotgun marriage with a local farmer, John, who lives with his mother. She becomes a farmer's wife, and in the next 25 years goes on to have 5 children, and a strangely weird relationship with John that is characterised by a strong physical, heavily sexually active relations behind closed doors in the bedroom and one of an estranged silence between the two of them in every sphere of life elsewhere, despite their close proximity to each other. In a emotionally charged and heartbreaking narrative, Mary lives through the years as a traumatised woman, growing up in many areas, yet so understandably emotionally stunted in others. It would be all too easy to superficially attribute her feelings towards John as those of hate, things are so much more complicated and can she actually face the truth of what lies between them? I laughed, I cried, I felt every emotion under the sun. This book is a masterpiece and I’m so glad that we crossed paths. Definitely in my top reads of all time. This is in many ways a familiar story but it is told in such a fresh, entertaining, funny and moving way, it felt like I was reading something brand new.' RODDY DOYLESet amidst The Troubles of Northern Ireland in the 70s through to early 2000s we follow Mary Rattigan through her and her family’s religious, political and personal journeys. Delaney’s true skill here was displaying the complex relationships and emotions experienced by every character in the novel. Everything is vividly raw, no one understands what others are holding close to them, each person has a purpose and will strive for that without sharing their feelings or dreams. It’s a heartbreaking portrayal of how deeply miscommunication can wound us, how sometimes trauma can cause irreparable damage, and how the walls we build can be strong enough to ruin us. This book was a bit of a curate's egg for me. The first part dealing with Mary's childhood before her forced marriage at sixteen was superb. It really captured growing up with a toxic, narcissistic mother in Northern Ireland and resonated so much with my own life down to her mother spelling out regpungant words (to her) such as T.R.A.M.P and the superior holier than thou attitude, belittling and sense of never being good enough or of getting things right. It started to fall apart for me when Mary gets pregnant after her first sexual encounter (how predictable) and is hastly married off to the farmer down the road who is the rumoured who has recently returned heartbroken from that there London (and is himself the rumoured illigetimate offspring of a priest).

A touching tale of how one woman survives a tough beginning to eventually end up exactly where her heart belongs' ANNE GRIFFIN, author of When All is Said

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It’s told mostly from a Mary, and the dialogue is written in a different format without speech bubbles but easily followed.

As we follow Mary on her life’s journey and the era of time in 1970’s we see how things were so different then. The couple never speak to each other and it is not explained until near the end of the book why he agreed to marry Mary (although it is easy to guess, if not the most logical or realistic thing to do). They go onto to have five children, have a torrid but closeted in the bedroom sex life and despite working together on the farm never speak to one another and seem to show no kindness to each other either, which I just couldn't quite believe. They get married in 1982,I do know that many young people still had "shotgun" marriages at that point in time in Northern Ireland but don't know of anyone who married someone not the father of the child. At that point I was openly living with my boyfriend, all be it in the city as were many friends. Things weren't quite as oppressive sexually as made out, the book should have been set in the 60's or 70's if it wanted to have the sexual mores it recounts. Many girls crossed the water for an abortion in Scotland or England (as they still have to), often their parents were the most religious and most vocally against abortion in public, but this is never considered as an option for Mary. Her wanting a better relationship with her Father, I felt the urge there. Her mother and her relationship was not ideal, far from it. All this is in the book. This is a sad, sad story of the ignorance and prejudice of its time. A girl who loses everything for a few minutes of unexpected joy and then sees all her plans for life evaporate. It's a tale of two people who just can't talk to each other or admit to their feelings. It's dripping with so much repression and so many words unspoken that the reader will want to shake the pair of them into some sense.How comes there’s something wrong with this book if you, you the nastiest stars giver, gave it 4 stars? That’s a miracle!”

Despite how good her husband is to both her and her daughter, she still treats him with disdain and blames him for her predicament. At times I wanted to shout at her character for being so selfish but as a product of a damaged childhood, she hadn’t dealt with her own emotional issues and in many ways was still childlike in her behaviour. The growth of Mary, the maturing of Mary and the development of love and intense emotion brought tears to my eyes at the end. So many religious references and that pissed me off. At the beginning it was comprehensible because it put me into the context of what was going on and how the MC was who she was. But still, pissed me off. That’s my preference, though. This is a very good debut which becomes absolutely engrossing as Mary battles so many demons and constructs walls around herself. She has little sense of self worth and it’s beyond sad that she misses out on so much joy although I do want to shake her sometimes as she drowns in self pity! All the characters are extremely well depicted, there are some to love (John, his mother Bridie and Mary’s friend Lizzie etc) and some to heartily dislike such as Mary’s hard as nails mother Sadie who is most certainly at the root of Mary’s issues. Yes, Siree Bob, she sure is. I love how that little phrase repeats itself through the book!

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Oh my goodness, such an apt title. I feel like my heart broke at least 5 times when reading this beautiful book. And I’d do it all over again!