Review by Stacey O’Carroll
Author: Emma Darragh
Publisher: Joan (Allen & Unwin)
RRP: $32.99
Release Date: 27 February 2024
“If she could help it, this year would be different.”
Every now and then, a novel comes along that dares to be different and push conventional structure out the window. Emma Darragh’s debut, Thanks For Having Me, does just that with its non-linear short stories structured into a novel. A structure that succeeds in some chapters yet is disorientating in others.
“Dad meets me at the school gate with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. We don’t talk on the walk home but he makes me hold his hand when we cross the road.”
In Thanks For Having Me, written as the creative artefact of Darragh’s PhD, we take a trip into nostalgia and mother-daughter relationships with Vivian and her mother, Mary Anne. Set in Wollongong, NSW, we see patterns repeat themselves through each generation down to Vivian’s teenage daughter Evie. When Mary Anne walks out on her family, Vivian struggles to forgive her mother and searches for meaning in all aspects of her life, only to repeat her mother’s behaviour.
“She makes me Vegemite and cheese rice cakes that are a bit soft and chewy by lunchtime. And ants on logs out of celery and peanut butter and sultanas — until hallway through term one when the teacher gives me a note saying no peanut butter allowed.”
The strongest scenes for me were the ones that featured Vivian because I could relate to her childhood the most. However, the scenes unravelling Mary Anne’s trauma around her sister were particularly heartbreaking. Darragh’s novel perfectly captures the late eighties and early nineties childhood with references to Dolly and Girlfriend magazines, Walkman’s, and Red Earth makeup. In the chapters focusing on teenage Vivian, it is easy to slip back into the offline teen years of the nineties and when television shows could be missed. Darragh also captures the angst of teenage diet culture with alarming accuracy, a reminder that things have not completely changed. Aerobics Oz Style has only been replaced by online videos.
“What if there was a Gumtree for families? Or a Buy Swap Sell. If you don’t get the kid you hope for —if you want a boy who loves playing football and getting dirty but instead you get a girl who likes birds and trumpets and reading books and telling you facts —what if you could do a swap?”
The relationship between a mother and daughter is filled with love but also extremely fragile. Darragh’s exploration of the mothers, daughters and sisters within Thanks For Having Me is nuanced and, at times, heartbreaking in its honesty. However, some of the poignancy of her overarching story was minimised by being pulled out of the narrative to work out what the decade is and who the short story/chapter is focusing on. While this disorientation is true to coming of age and growing up, or, for that matter, living, it is hard for readers to balance the intended unease with the confusion of following the narrative. One cannot help but wonder if the short stories were more impactful left as short stories.
“Susan didn’t have any bad dreams that night so she started sleeping in my bed. I thought maybe I’d fixed her. But then I started having bad dreams.”
Darragh has a knack for capturing the often messy parts of life in lovely, realistic vignettes. Come for ring pops and stay for the Coco Pops. Thanks For Having Me is, at times, funny and shattering all at once. Although the novel was not the immersive read I had hoped for, I enjoyed the exploration of the women’s relationships. Thanks For Having Me is for those who do not mind a non-linear narrative.