⭐⭐⭐
Patrick “Pussy” Braden is the delightful star of this chaotic tale about identity, sexuality, and freedom. The setting is 1960s and 70s Ireland—the frequent and indiscriminate bombings of the Troubles a sinister backdrop to the glamorous yet gritty life of our protagonist. Pussy, as she chooses to be called, is a transgender woman from a small fictional town called Tyreelin. There, the heavy Catholic attitude of the locals oppresses Pussy’s self-expression and causes her to long for a happier, wealthier life elsewhere, preferably at the side of a rich, loving man.
Pussy takes us on the journey of her whole life, starting out in Tyreelin where, still then going by the name of Patrick, she’d secretly try on the clothes of the women she lived with and perform songs from the radio in fancy dresses for her friends. Once grown, she leaves the town with the hope of claiming a new life for herself and potentially finding her biological mother along the way. She acquires comfort in the company of a married politician who pays for Pussy’s extravagant desires and then moves to London, where she becomes a prostitute in Piccadilly Circus and encounters all manners of customers–some violent, some kind. Pussy struggles to shake her ties to her home, constantly being reminded of the acts of the IRA, and her mission to find her desired life lands her in all sorts of strange and sticky situations.
I gave this Pat McCabe novel three stars, as I found the split of what I enjoyed and what I disliked to be almost equal. The reason I chose three stars over two is because Pussy is such a wonderful character. This novel is set out as short stories detailing specific events in Pussy’s life, as if written by her—an assignment from a doctor she sees. As a result, her voice is incredibly strong, the words flowing as if spoken out loud, her own slang embedded into the prose as well as the dialogue, and the tangents she sometimes goes off on realistic to the point of frustration. She jumps back and forth between events; though they are generally organised chronologically, there are intervals looking at different characters and what happens to them. Her style is honest, unashamed, and filled with heart, a style which can make certain violent instances detailed throughout the book quite jarring to read.
Unfortunately, while the writing breathed life into the story, the constant leaping about and references to people whose names were barely mentioned once made it difficult to follow where Pussy was and what exactly she was talking about. Sometimes I would be halfway through a chapter before grasping that we were back in Tyreelin, or in a nightclub in London, or learning the fate of Charlie’s fiancé, Irwin. It also made it difficult to get back into the story. I could read large chunks of pages in one go, but picking the book up again after a day or two was a struggle since I hardly remembered where I’d left off and, in most cases, it didn’t even matter, for the next chapter would be about something entirely different.
There was also the subplot, inserted to the story at random points, regarding Pussy’s biological mother. Pussy writes about how her mother came to be pregnant with her, teetering between fact and fiction as she imagines the isolation that came with pregnancy out of wedlock, the result of the local priest’s actions, her gaze falling upon the other girls of the town who suffered similar fates, children who never got to be young. While the plot is vital to Pussy’s motivation, the need to find her mother triggering her move to London, it would again take me a few paragraphs, or even pages, to adjust to where Pussy had taken me.
Pussy’s lust for life is infectious, but her recklessness and naivety sometimes make for a stressful reading experience. Situations escalate quickly to violence or abuse, the descriptions becoming visceral and sometimes tough to digest, though that was likely the effect McCabe wanted to have. Each event is written almost with carelessness, as if she finds it easy now to laugh it off, yet every unfortunate situation she finds herself in only made me pity her, my admiration for her positivity outweighed by the misery and neglect she experiences throughout her life. She also wrestles with the revenge she desires against her father, the priest, throughout the book, her fury towards him revealing murky waters beneath all the glamour and delight. Though knowing that the right thing to do would be to forgive, Pussy struggles to let go, which only made her more compelling to me as a character.
Her life as a transgender (or ‘transvestite’, a term used more widely at the time of the novel’s publication) prostitute is tumultuous, ultimately not sustainable, and made more tragic by Pussy’s evident desire for pure, true love. The ending is bittersweet and rather anticlimactic compared to the adventures of the rest of the novel.
Pussy’s freedom of expression is evident throughout, not just in the way she dresses but in the way she refers to herself. Despite presenting as a woman, she sometimes refers to herself as ‘he’ or ‘Patrick’, demonstrating a fluidity to her gender. The final line being ‘He’s ours’ portrays that, regardless of how she refers to herself, what she wants most is to belong, and to belong as she is rather than changing to fit someone else’s ideal. She can be Pussy or Patrick, for they are one and the same.
Overall, this book was fun and fast-paced but definitely an acquired taste. It’s worth a go, but if you don’t gel with the first few chapters don’t be afraid to concede. The writing is strong if chaotic and Pussy herself is the star of the show, a not-so-hidden gem who will dazzle and ground you. It’s certainly well-deserving of the Booker nomination it received and does what books are made to do: evoke empathy and introduce you to people you may never have encountered before.
