Review: The Home Scar by Kathleen MacMahon

Few understand the human condition as well as Kathleen MacMahon does, as is evidenced in her earlier works like Nothing But The Blue Sky. In this book too, she demonstrates her ability to grasp the intricacy of the emotional interactions that her characters must navigate. The plot follows the journey of the siblings, and the past, which has had an impact on their lives, is the focus. Cassie and Christo each have unique memories of that past. In some ways, this book looks at how childhood influences adulthood. The novel also asks how much can we truly know about those we are closest to, and by extension, about ourselves.

“What she was left with was the impossibility of ever knowing the truth of someone else’s life, something that is unknowable perhaps even to themselves. Unless – and this was Cassie’s hope – unless something remains of a person in the places that were important to them. Unless the air in those places holds memory of the person they were, the way water is said to retain the memory of a substance that has long since been diluted out of it.”

This book’s prose is genuinely exceptional in terms of nuance and depth. Old recollections mingle with the present, touching down like waves on the sand.

Cassie and Christo lead quite different lives as adults. While Christo is a mathematician at Cambridge, Cassie is an artist in Mexico. Their reunion in Ireland dredges up memories of their final summer together as children. While Christo remembers their mother, Margo, in one way, Cassie remembers her in quite another. At one point, towards the middle of the novel, they have a sense that they are chasing time as they attempt to solve the mystery of their mother.

“The home scar,” she’d said. “That’s what they call the mark limpets make on the rock when they return.”

“Wait, they leave the rock?”

“Yes, of course. How else would they survive? They have to move to feed on algae, and when they re-attach, they return to the exact same spot. Their shell adapts to the shape of the rock. They create their own dent in the stone. It’s known as ‘the home scar’.”

The novel has an extraordinary sense of location and portrays County Galway’s spooky expanse of lakes, bogs, heathland, and mountains, as well as the area’s treeless atmosphere. The story begins with a storm uncovering an old, drowned forest off the southern coast of Connemara and the return of the characters to that terrain. In the real world, Connemara’s ancient woodlands have been gone for thousands of years but continue to haunt the area. Intrigued by the thought of a landscape bound to remember its dead, MacMahon tought of writing a novel that resembled a ghost story; one that looked at how something may be gone from the world but has not truly disappeared.

This is a startling work of fiction that entices readers with its gorgeous language and insights, and the moral quandary at its core.

Hritik Verma is an independent reviewer. He blogs at allayingart.wordpress.com. He is @Hritik38233434 on Twitter and @allayingart on Instagram

In Irish writer Kathleen MacMahon’s fourth novel, Cassie and Christo, two half-siblings, who live on opposite sides of the globe, have centred their lives on their jobs in an effort to forget their traumatic past. They are attracted back to Galway, Ireland, to reminisce about a wonderful childhood summer, the final one before their mother died, when a big storm there makes the news. However, as they go, they come upon memories of a summer that was considerably less joyful and had ended in tragedy. They are then forced to confront their history and deal with the complicated web of parental love and neglect that created them.

Few understand the human condition as well as Kathleen MacMahon does, as is evidenced in her earlier works like Nothing But The Blue Sky. In this book too, she demonstrates her ability to grasp the intricacy of the emotional interactions that her characters must navigate. The plot follows the journey of the siblings, and the past, which has had an impact on their lives, is the focus. Cassie and Christo each have unique memories of that past. In some ways, this book looks at how childhood influences adulthood. The novel also asks how much can we truly know about those we are closest to, and by extension, about ourselves.

“What she was left with was the impossibility of ever knowing the truth of someone else’s life, something that is unknowable perhaps even to themselves. Unless – and this was Cassie’s hope – unless something remains of a person in the places that were important to them. Unless the air in those places holds memory of the person they were, the way water is said to retain the memory of a substance that has long since been diluted out of it.”

This book’s prose is genuinely exceptional in terms of nuance and depth. Old recollections mingle with the present, touching down like waves on the sand.

Cassie and Christo lead quite different lives as adults. While Christo is a mathematician at Cambridge, Cassie is an artist in Mexico. Their reunion in Ireland dredges up memories of their final summer together as children. While Christo remembers their mother, Margo, in one way, Cassie remembers her in quite another. At one point, towards the middle of the novel, they have a sense that they are chasing time as they attempt to solve the mystery of their mother.

“The home scar,” she’d said. “That’s what they call the mark limpets make on the rock when they return.”

“Wait, they leave the rock?”

“Yes, of course. How else would they survive? They have to move to feed on algae, and when they re-attach, they return to the exact same spot. Their shell adapts to the shape of the rock. They create their own dent in the stone. It’s known as ‘the home scar’.”

The novel has an extraordinary sense of location and portrays County Galway’s spooky expanse of lakes, bogs, heathland, and mountains, as well as the area’s treeless atmosphere. The story begins with a storm uncovering an old, drowned forest off the southern coast of Connemara and the return of the characters to that terrain. In the real world, Connemara’s ancient woodlands have been gone for thousands of years but continue to haunt the area. Intrigued by the thought of a landscape bound to remember its dead, MacMahon tought of writing a novel that resembled a ghost story; one that looked at how something may be gone from the world but has not truly disappeared.

This is a startling work of fiction that entices readers with its gorgeous language and insights, and the moral quandary at its core.

Hritik Verma is an independent reviewer. He blogs at allayingart.wordpress.com. He is @Hritik38233434 on Twitter and @allayingart on Instagram