"On Friday morning, I woke to a lawnmower outside, a sound of order in the world, of adults taking care of things." In her carefully-crafted debut novel, A Crooked Tree, Una Mannion tells a colourful coming-of-age tale about an Irish-American teenager growing up on a mountainside in rural Pennsylvania.
Libby Gallagher is the middle child of five siblings who must learn to fend for themselves over the course of a turbulent year. Their Irish father has recently died, their mother is distant in her grief, and in her secret life with her boyfriend Bill who the older siblings suspect is the father of the youngest child, Beatrice.
The mother’s complicated infidelity is the first of many interesting twists in a narrative full of quiet surprises and revelations. Opening with a tense car journey where the mother loses her temper and kicks 12-year-old Ellen out into the dark, winding roads of the mountain to find her own way home, the book immediately evokes a family in crisis; one which we suspect will need to come together in order to avoid disaster.
If this makes Mannion’s novel sound hackneyed, it is anything but. The classic coming-of-age tale gets new life from the original setting, the nostalgic 1980s atmosphere, and the clash of Irish and American cultures as witnessed and related by the intuitive narrator Libby.
In theme and structure there are overtones of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, though this is the world as viewed through the eyes of a sometimes angst-ridden teenager, as opposed to the muddled innocence of children. But there are similar patterns in both books: absentee parents, amateur sleuthing, misconstrued neighbours and the real dangers that lurk in the background.
As with Lee’s novel, A Crooked Tree would make a fine addition to a school curriculum. It is a book full of knowledge: “‘Tears contain a natural chemical painkiller, enkephalin,’ Thomas whispered. ‘You’ll feel better afterward.’” The mysteries are engaging; the lessons are dexterously laid down; the sense of discovery, for both reader and character, is palpable.
Best known to date for her poetry, Mannion was born in Philadelphia and lives in Sligo. Prizes for her work include the Hennessy award for her poem Crouched Burial, and the Doolin, Cúirt, Allingham and Ambit short story prizes. Her writing has been published in The Irish Times, The Lonely Crowd, Crannóg and Bare Fiction.
Natural world
Her debut novel has drawn comparisons to Joyce Carol Oates. Closer to home, her affinity with the natural world – Libby's experience is steeped in nature – recalls the writing of Sara Baume and Claire Keegan. Tiffany McDaniel's captivating coming-of-age novel Betty also comes to mind, though Mannion's book is less melodramatic in its twists and developments.
A Crooked Tree is rich in imagery, from the haircut and clothes of punk-loving eldest sister Marie, to the minor yet somehow significant details that children attach to their surroundings: “There were four floors with small staircases of five steps each between them.” Elsewhere, 1980s America is vibrantly rendered, from music to make-up to a news story of the Atlanta child murders that dominates the papers.
While Libby shows some interest in the pursuits of an average teenager – underage drinking, white high-top Converse, kissing her older brother’s friend – she is set apart from the world of her sisters and her best friend Sage through her love of exploration and nature.
The title is a reference to a particular landmark near the Gallaghers’ house. Libby describes certain trees as having “oval leaves with primary veins that curve upward along smooth wavy margins”. And as with all good teenage adventure stories, there is a place of sanctuary outside the home: “The Kingdom was an enclosure about four feet above the trail and set back in a natural ring formed by a stand of red oak and thick mountain laurel.”
This book is also concerned with the adult world. Through their daughter’s perspective, Libby’s parents emerge as flawed but relatable characters. Her Irish father “worked harder than anyone I knew. But he never seemed to be able to save.” Her mother’s temper and absenteeism are part of a complex back story that Libby can’t access but the reader is given glimpses along the way: a single parent to five children, a woman in a chauvinistic society, a person trying to hold herself and her family together.
Occasionally the book falters, as with climactic scenes that see Libby ask too many leading questions, or with her musings on bad-boy neighbour Wilson, which feel slightly overdone. But these are minor points in a book that is brimming with curiosity and wonder. Mannion imparts Libby’s development in a series of subtle, suspenseful scenes that will leave the reader wanting more. An evocative and convincing coming-of-age story that is centred on the most important tree of all, the tree of life.
