Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell (October 2018)

[Judy]

Susan wrote: "I actually liked all of the family, in different ways. I thought it was very well written and I thought O'Farrell wrote those difficult, family relationships well. That shared history that can be a strength, but also a weakness. ..."

I agree with this - I liked them all too, and found them very real - they all had both good and bad points, and I kept thinking around their decisions and wondering how they might have done something differently. I think Gretta is probably my favourite, though.

[Judy]

Rosina wrote: "But I suppose if his story was that his brother had died fighting for Ireland then it would have been difficult not to want it commemorated in his son's name. ..."

Good point, I'd forgotten about this cover story.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Jill wrote: "We will have to differ on that, as I think his loyalty to his "wife" and children should have come before his feelings for his brother who he had not seen for years."

But a brother who had been in prison and who he had been "supporting" for years. Was he not also protecting his family from the notoriety of having such a relative? I'm glad I don't have such a secret to protect, but I also don't want to judge what other people might do in such circumstances.

[Rosina]

By walking out, leaving his 'wife' not knowing if he was alive or dead, he risked exposing everything - the false marriage, his brother's terrorist past, the way his brother and wife had cuckolded him on his wedding day. If he had told Gretta that he had to go to Ireland for family reasons, she would not have panicked, not brought the police in (and potentially the newspapers, who would have easily found out all the details).

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Rosina wrote: "By walking out, leaving his 'wife' not knowing if he was alive or dead, he risked exposing everything - the false marriage, his brother's terrorist past, the way his brother and wife had cuckolded ..."

True, all true. And I'm sure it's what you would have done. I'm not at all sure I can agree that Robert was as clear thinking as all that.

[Judy]

I wish we had seen through Robert's eyes, as we do with all the other characters. I wonder why O'Farrell decided never to let us see him directly, only through the thoughts of his family?

[Rosina]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I'm not at all sure I can agree that Robert was as clear thinking as all that"

Until very recently, Robert was assistant manager at a bank. I agree that he didn't seem to have thought through the consequences of his actions, but I think that's because of his total selfishness, rather than because he was incapable of thinking more clearly.

A selfishness that had already resulted in three children born out of wedlock, a 'wife' who presumably can't go to confession, because she can't confess to her sins, and an actual wife who I hope managed to get free of the marriage eventually (it would not have been easy for her - the 'guilty' party could not demand a divorce).

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Rosina wrote: " an actual wife who I hope managed to get free of the marriage eventually (it would not have been easy for her - the 'guilty' party could not demand a divorce)"

In what way do you think this "marriage" hampered her in any way? She probably just chose to ignore it and went on her merry way. She didn't stay with the brother, you may recall. (But that might make for another, very different novel.)

I'm pretty sure that Robert could have asked for and been awarded an annulment as the marriage was never consummated.

[Rosina]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Rosina wrote: " an actual wife who I hope managed to get free of the marriage eventually (it would not have been easy for her - the 'guilty' party could not demand a divorce)"

In what way do you t..."

It would have prevented her ever entering into a legal marriage. That is fairly 'hampering'. But it's her own fault, after all. We don't know if she stayed with the brother until he was sent to prison. By the way, it seems unlikely that he would have been convicted of a terrorist murder and not hanged - even after 1957 murder of a police officer by shooting was a capital crime on two counts, and Northern Ireland did not abolish the death penalty until 1974 (although not hanging anyone in the last 10 years).

I am sure that Robert could have divorced his wife - she had committed adultery, or at the very least desertion. But he didn't.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Rosina wrote: "We don't know if she stayed with the brother until he was sent to prison. "

I'm not going to go search, but I think we did know that she didn't stay with him any longer than to run away.

I'm not sure it's important to be discussing a non-character, but this woman wouldn't have cared whether any subsequent marriage was legal or not. She simply wouldn't have told that she had been previously married and willingly entered into a bigamous relationship. It's not unheard of. And we don't even know if she stayed in Ireland.

[Rosina]

We were not discussing the wife's problems in life: I was pointing out the general selfishness of Robert's attitude towards everyone. We could continue to speculate about why he chose the course he did - a non-marriage to Gretta, rather than clear the mess up - but his behaviour is at the heart of the novel. If he had behaved like a sensible man at any stage, there would have been no story.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Well, we'll have to disagree. I didn't find Robert selfish. He was described as being completely devoted to Gretta. Not everyone is demonstrative.

[Jill]

I don't think it would have been demonstrative to tell his wife where he was going , or failing that to send her a message telling her where he was. Instead he was just thinking of himself and not caring about the trouble he would cause .

[Rosina]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Well, we'll have to disagree. I didn't find Robert selfish. He was described as being completely devoted to Gretta. Not everyone is demonstrative."

Was the description by some objective source? Or from Gretta, who wants to believe the best of him? Or from his children, who don't know that he lied to them (and to her, initially) about marriage?

The skittery chronology doesn't make it easy, but Gretta and Robert meet when Robert had just come back from the War - say 1946. If he gets her pregnant fairly immediately, Michael Francis will be born in 1947 (same age as me!) He will have completed his University degree in 1968, in the usual course of events, and apparently already started his PhD when he got Claire pregnant in revenge for her father referring to the Republic as Southern Ireland.
The son from that act is nearly 9, so it's a great squeeze to get it all fitted in before 1976.

It mght evoke some one's version of England in the 1970s, when bombs were planted on just down the road from where I worked, and hundred murdered by Irish terrorists of all stamps. But in general the English did not turn against the Irish - if they weren't supporting the terrorists. I had no opposition of my marriage to a Irish man in 1972. although my father's enquiry 'Are you generally a law abiding lad?' could be assumed to be a probing question about IRA membership - or just that he wanted to know if he was suitable boy-friend material.

As for Sarah the scarlet woman with silvery hair we know only that she had gone before Frankie was released from his long prison sentence.

[Judy]

Thanks for working out the chronology, Rosina - I was thinking it seemed quite a tight fit, but you've shown that it does work.

The book would possibly lend itself to a sequel, wouldn't it, where we could see what happens next to everyone, find out what happened to Sarah and her silvery hair and finally meet Robert?

[Val]

I don't think this particular family would have been any more ashamed of a relative who spent years in prison for 'fighting for Ireland' than if had died doing so. Robert may not have known Francis was still alive until he was released in poor health and taken in by the nuns however, so his 'death' might not have been a cover story. He should have told Gretta when he found out of course, and that he was going to be sending donations to the nuns for Francis's care.

[Rosina]

Judy wrote: "Thanks for working out the chronology, Rosina - I was thinking it seemed quite a tight fit, but you've shown that it does work.

The book would possibly lend itself to a sequel, wouldn't it, where ..."

I don't think it does fit, unless Michael Francis was a prodigy who went to university years before the normal A-Levels. If the son was born in 1968 (nearly 9 in 1976), then MF must have started doing his PhD by 1967, at the age of 20 (and at least today, one first has to do Masters, adding at least a year on).

The non-linear narration hides this, but it is the author's job to get it right, not to use a shoehorn to cram too many events in, just so she can have the effect of the Heatwave.

[Rosina]

Val wrote: "I don't think this particular family would have been any more ashamed of a relative who spent years in prison for 'fighting for Ireland' than if had died doing so. Robert may not have known Francis..."

The Northern Campaign during which Francis was arrested was waged between 1942 and 1944. The Wikipedia article does at least confirm that Francis might not have been hanged, but I think that supporting the IRA when the IRA leadership were conspiring with Nazi Germany to defeat the UK ought to have increased, not decreased, their lack of pride in Francis.

[Val]

Rosina, I see you have assumed Francis was imprisoned in NI, I assumed he was imprisoned in the Republic, but I'm not sure what I based that on now, perhaps because of where he ended up. Was Castlerea not mentioned at one point?
RI had the death penalty for murder at the time as well (until 1964), although they don't seem to have used it all that much after the mid 1920s.

[Rosina]

Val wrote: "Rosina, I see you have assumed Francis was imprisoned in NI, I assumed he was imprisoned in the Republic, but I'm not sure what I based that on now, perhaps because of where he ended up. Was Castle..."

The conversation with the priest: "Several years after the war, Frankie resurfaced, in Ulster, in prison. ‘Prison?’ Gretta repeated, because Robert had told her that his brother, Frankie, was dead, killed in the Troubles. ‘It was a contentious case and caused a furore at the time. He was convicted for shooting a police officer during the Northern Campaign but another man later claimed he had been the one who did it, that Frankie had had nothing to do with it. Only God knows. Frankie was released, I believe, after many years but, of course, his health was broken."

O'Farrell, Maggie. Instructions for a Heatwave (p. 248). Headline. Kindle Edition.

The joy of a searchable Kindle, available on the PC for ease of copying ... The Irish were clamping down on the IRA, but the violence was all against the UK.

[Val]

Thanks for finding that. It must have been the town that was mentioned, not the prison specifically.

[Judy]

Rosina wrote: "I don't think it does fit, unless Michael Francis was a prodigy who went to university years before the normal A-Levels. ..."

Good point. In that case, I wonder why she didn't just make Hughie a bit younger, to avoid straining the chronology?

[Rosina]

Judy wrote: "Rosina wrote: "I don't think it does fit, unless Michael Francis was a prodigy who went to university years before the normal A-Levels. ..."

Good point. In that case, I wonder why she didn't just ..."

I agree - or set it later, as the Heatwave isn't really essential. The daughter has to have reached school age, so that Claire can go back to studying, but Hughie doesn't need to be much older than that, unless I've missed something.

We may need to put Michael Francis's birth back a bit, and thus his getting his place at University. We know that he and Monica were 10 months apart, and in the same class at school. That means he was not born in the first 8 months of 1947, since the intake year (for that year-cohort) changed from January- December, to September-August. The Bulge of 1947 was just too large to fit into a classroom! (As I said, I was born in that year, and when looking at class birthdays we didn't have any in the later part of the year.) To get them both in the same year we will have to hold him back a year, and he won't take his A-Levels until 1966.

One of the reasons I never became a novelist was because there would have to be so much fact checking!

[Nigeyb]

Somewhat belatedly I am currently reading...


Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

Better late than never eh?

I am about 40 pages in and really enjoying it

I have resisted the urge to read this discussion though as I suspect it will contain spoilers and it seems to be a narrative-driven novel which would be underminded by too much advance knowledge of the plot

Thread revival ahoy



It’s July 1976. In London, it hasn’t rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he’s going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn’t come back.

The search for Robert brings Gretta’s children – two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce – back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.

[Judy]

Hope you enjoy it, Nigeyb. I remember really liking it.

[Nigeyb]

Judy wrote:


"Hope you enjoy it, Nigeyb. I remember really liking it."

Thanks Judy

I did enjoy it however I also concluded that, whilst pleasant, it was a tad inconsequential too

Review here...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

3/5

[Nigeyb]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I didn't notice that the heatwave had much to do with this."

Susan wrote: "The story was certainly not dependent on the weather, but, for anyone in England, I suppose setting it then really placed it in a particular time and era."

I concluded that the weather was a metaphor for the oppressive feel within the Riordan family.

That said, the heatwave receded into the background quite quickly, only to remarked upon in passing. Initially the protagonists are all sweating and one even takes an illegal bath. Perhaps Maggie O'Farrell felt she didn't need to keep mentioning how hot it was?

[Nigeyb]

My favourite section was the death of the cat - if you can remember that part - and Monica's dread at her step daughters' reactions.