The Dower House

Summary (from the publisher): Widely praised for her rich and elegant prose, Annabel Davis-Goff delivers the story of Molly Hassard, an Anglo-Irish orphan coming of age in a formerly privileged society. As the Protestant-Irish emerge from the postwar years, the refuse to face the inevitable: They have beautiful old houses, but can scarcely afford to heat them; eat meals on exquisitely set tables, while the roof leaks; and talk very seriously about the importance of making suitable marriages.

When Molly flees the genteel poverty of Ireland for London of the 1960s, she must balance the allure of the new against the romance of a world that no longer exists.

 

Review: Molly is raised in genteel poverty in Ireland in the 1960s. The only child of a younger son, she is orphaned while still relatively young and her future seems uncertain. It's clear to Molly that the way of life that her family and social class are accustomed to cannot survive and will possibly expire before she does. They cannot maintain their vast homes and live off the hand-me-downs from older, more prosperous generations, indefinitely.

 

Throughout the novel, the prevailing sense of Molly being caught up in a dying way of life dulls what should be Molly's optimistic outlook on her future. Even as an eight year old child, she is quite cognizant of this reality of decline: "We're living on leftovers, preserving and patching and making things last. There's not quite enough to last my parents' generation, and there really won't be enough for you and me" (10). While others may see continuing in this way of life as "passive and unimaginative," Molly and her family see it as courageous "to continue in the life and traditions of the already almost extinct Anglo-Irish" (102).

 

This sense of a doom is heightened by Molly's status within her family as the child of the younger son. Molly is viewed and treated as a poor relation, always coming in second place to her cousin Sophie. Later on, Molly lives with her two widowed great-aunts, rounding out the trio of ladies who cheerfully keep up standards as they are accustomed to, darning and patching holes to extend the life that they know is destined to end. Molly spends much of her time with elderly family members who are nostalgic for the past rather than allowing her unfettered access to explore her future.

 

The narrative of this novel felt strangely impersonal, although I suppose that is in keeping with the stiff upper lip mentality in which Molly is raised. When she goes off to school, social troubles are only vaguely alluded to; "After a few painful mistakes, she learned that girls who sought confidences usually did so in order to betray them" (27). What these mistakes may have been are never revealed. Likewise, Molly has no true real confidante, living a grim, emotionally isolated existence within a decaying social strata. Molly believes that her family's way of life might struggle on for maybe another two generations. "She felt as though she were disappearing, fading away, becoming invisible. She felt as thought she knew how it would feel to be a ghost" (164).

 

After finishing this book, it felt as if very little had happened within its pages, other than a girl coming to age and a depiction of life during the decline of the great estate way of life. I liked Molly as a character enormously and I admired her stoic forbearance in the face of great sadness and poor luck in such a short life. Despite the hardships and inevitable decline, the book seems to argue that carrying on with traditions with honor is far preferable to finding an out. Sophie, who marries a rich man to escape her family's lifestyle, ends up listless and unhappy while I believe that Molly will go on to have a much happier life.

 

Stars: 3