Book Review: The Forester's Daughter by Claire Keegan
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The story revolves around the family of Victor Deegan, a hard working forester from County Wicklow, Ireland. Victor's life revolves around his work as a forester, his farm and his duties towards his family.
“In Aghowle there are three teenagers, the milking and the mortgage.”
One day he finds a gun dog in the woods and brings the retriever home. His twelve-year-old daughter Victoria, for whom any gesture of attention or affection from her father is rare, somehow assumes that her father remembered her birthday and the dog is his gift to her. She names the dog Judge. Victoria’s mother, Martha, fears that her daughter’s attachment to this dog will end in heartbreak. Martha is no stranger to disappointment. Her marriage to Victor has not been a happy one. After being courted for a year she agreed to marry him but was soon disillusioned on account of his emotionally distant demeanor and the isolation of living on a farm in the countryside.
“Martha realised she had made a mistake. All she had was a husband who hardly spoke now that he’d married her, an empty house and no income of her own. She had married a man she did not love. What had she expected? She had expected it would grow and deepen into love. And now she craved intimacy and the type of conversation that would surpass misunderstanding.”
In the twenty years she has been with Victor, Martha, now the mother of three children, has found her way to cope and has survived through her loneliness and regrets (she has her share of secrets!), and for the most part, does not confront her husband but when a careless act of his impacts her daughter, Martha knows exactly how to make Victor regret his actions and proceeds to do so in a manner that could fracture the already fragile relationships within her family.
This is a complex story with well-fleshed out characters – the adults are flawed individuals with simple emotions and expectations but with deep regret, disappointments and resentments that complicate their lives. The author touches upon sensitive themes of marriage, fidelity, honesty and parenthood. It should be noted, that though the eponymous ‘forester’s daughter’ is of significant importance to the crux of the story, Victoria is treated more like a secondary character. I do wish her character had been explored with a little more depth. For a story that spans a mere 67 pages (I read the Faber and Faber Paperback edition), the author masterfully weaves multiple PoVs throughout the narrative. While Martha’s thoughts and actions take up a major part of the narrative, the author gives us a glimpse into the thoughts and feelings of her husband Victor, her second son who is described as a "simpleton” who “has a frightening aptitude for telling the truth”and Victoria as well as the profoundly insightful observations of Judge, the dog.
“Judge is glad he cannot speak. He has never understood the human compulsion for conversation: people, when they speak, say useless things that seldom if ever improve anything. Their words make them sad. Why can’t they stop talking and embrace each other?”
Claire Keegan once again proves that she is a masterful storyteller. With elegant prose and subtle metaphors, exquisite imagery, superb characterizations and a climax that will surprise you, The Forester’s Daughter is an engaging read that I would definitely recommend.
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