THE WHIPPING CLUB A
Novel by Deborah Henry
T.S. Poetry Press,
February 2, 2012 ISBN 978-0-98445531-7-4
(Paperback)
“The Church and State behave as
incestuous bedfellows, keeping the whole of Ireland in a guilt-ridden
headlock.”
As
a second-generation Irish-American who has made 18 visits “home” to Ireland, I
know something about this country and about its capital city Dublin in
particular. I also know about the
history of the Jews in Ireland. I have a
friend who is related to Ben Briscoe, the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin
(elected in 1956). I’ve paid several
visits to The Irish Jewish Museum, opened in 1985 by then-Israeli President
Chaim Herzog (born in Belfast in 1918). To
quote Kathy Griffin, as an Irish-American Catholic from an urban area, I feel
as though I’m “Jew-adjacent,” in that faith, family, oppression, guilt,
survival, tenacity, language, food, lust
and humor are central themes to our cultural and life experiences. Deborah Henry’s debut historical novel serves
as a marvelous introduction to the specific topic of Jews and Catholics in
Dublin. However, Henry’s astonishing
gift as a storyteller leaves no doubt that The
Whipping Club has universal appeal as a tale about marriage, family, love,
loss and redemption.
In
1957 Marian McKeever (23), a Catholic school teacher employed at The Zion
School in the small Jewish enclave in Dublin called Little Jerusalem, has
fallen in love with Ben Ellis (24), a Jewish journalist. In fact, Marian is pregnant. She confides her condition to her uncle,
Father Brennan, who lays out her options for Marian. She can marry Ben without telling him she’s
pregnant. Or she can go away, have the
baby and place it up for adoption, then return home and allow Ben to marry her
on his own terms. Her uncle says, “Because
sometimes love isn’t enough, Marian.
That’s the truth.” That very
night Marian meets Ben’s parents Samuel and Beva. She realizes that his mother Beva, who
escaped The Holocaust but lost all of her family, will never accept that Ben
loves a non-Jew and wants to marry outside of his faith. Harsh words are spoken by both women, and
Marian leaves Ben’s home and makes her decision about the baby.
The
plot leaps ahead to 1967. Marian and Ben
are married, and have a beautiful daughter Johanna (age 9) whom they call
“Jo.” They live in a lovely home in
Donnybrook, south of the Liffey. Marian,
still deeply in love with Ben, stays at home and takes care of their daughter
while Ben works at The Irish Times as
a reporter. But the Briscoe’s are not
the complete picture of contentment.
Marian is bored with being a housewife.
Ben is quite involved with his journalism career, and often is not at
home. Marian hates to admit to the
disappointment she feels in her life because she carries a larger burden--guilt. Marian took her uncle’s advice and went off
to the Castleboro Baby Home, run by the villainous Sister Paulinas (whom Marian
dubbed “Sister Penis”) to have the baby without Ben’s knowledge. She gave birth to a son, Adrian, who would be
11-years-old now. She believes that he
was placed with an American couple. An
unexpected visitor soon brings news which upends everything and raises doubts
for the entire family about themselves, about their marriage, about who they
believe they are, and about their country.
The Whipping Club is a book to be savored. While the plot twists are riveting, truly
this book is about the journey, not the destination. Deborah Henry knows the real language which
all couples speak, which all families speak.
While the reader focuses on the family story, social and political
conditions are strongly drawn. Henry’s naturalistic
prose renders each scene authentic, and she endows the novel with just the
right details, small and grand, in terms of time, place and characters. One of the author’s finest feats is that she
is able to summon up insight and even sympathy into even the most profligate
clergy members. This is a thoroughly
great historical drama, and I eagerly await Henry’s next novel.
