Book Review: "Breakdown" by Cathy Sweeney

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? Is not really a book I found that was for me until I read it. I was immediately hooked on to this Thelma-and-Louise inspired narrative in which women break out of their bonds and go on these long self-discovery inspired road trips (except All Fours by Miranda July, that sucked - I am so sorry. But it wasn't a road trip it kind of just pretended to be...). Anyways, I was kind of obsessed with those narratives based purely on a book I didn't think I'd like but I turned out to find really fun. So, enter this book entitled Breakdown by Cathy Sweeney that takes the narrative to a whole new place.

Our protagonist is your average middle-aged and middle-class woman from Dublin, Ireland. One winter morning, she walks out of her home, leaving behind her husband and teenage children, without any explanation or plan. I know, we've seen this story before but this one is quite different. I mean, every one of them is different to the last but I think there is a lot that makes this one quite special. One of those things is the writing which I thought was quite atmospheric without being overwhelming. It kept its genuine honesty whilst also giving us a flavour of the whole scene.

She travels by car, train, and ferry, finding herself in various mundane locations like service stations and shopping centres. She travels through Ireland and Wales, going everywhere and of course, we can see that this symbolises her search for meaning. Physical places become points of self-discovery no matter how mundane they are. This dislocation is her attempt at challenging the stable physical locations which motherhood often forces women into. I know it's a little deep, but when you read the book, these themes and meanings come alive. That's honestly one thing I thought was great about this novel.

She intersperses reflections on her childhood, her ambitions and how her marriage was actually fairly disappointing. These reveal that she is really quite a repressed soul, her dreams are very rarely realised and her ambitions squashed so that she could be a 'good woman'. This really provides an insight into why she leaves - she is well and truly unhappy and doesn't seem to be able to do anything about it. In her marriage and family life, she is stuck. She makes these constant complaints about being unfulfilled through her introspections and honestly this really speaks to the fact that societal pressures often overwhelm women's souls, creating subservient beings who are taught to have no dreams of their own. Or at least, that their dreams do not matter.

Apart from being atmospheric without being overwhelming, the narrative is surprisingly minimalistic. I think this is what makes the writing of this book very different to the other books I've read on similar storylines. The reflection of the emotional detachment of the protagonist into her narrative is something that I thought was quite clever. Cathy Sweeney really takes a good dig into the different layers of existence, unfulfillment and the way in which we change our speech to suit our emotions, our social situation and how we have been living. I could really feel a great atmospheric voice in this book.

One of the big themes I noticed in the book was unfulfilled motherhood. It is true that society expects parents to give up all their hopes and dreams and put themselves constantly second the very moment they have a child together. In most cases, that doesn't happen straight away and thus, can be very difficult to navigate as time goes on. She evaluates her role as a mother, often implying that it was her marriage and children that forced her into a box against her will. It is quite heartfelt in its ideas.

All in all, I feel like this book was a surprising enjoyment for me. I didn't think I'd want to read another runaway woman novel, but here we are. I also think that this might be one of the better ones as it involves the very narrative itself in the way it conveys ideas and themes. It really is quite a beautiful novel.