A Class Apart, by Susie Murphy
Ireland, 1828. Bridget Muldowney is nineteen, and set to inherit the beautiful Oakleigh Manor estate on which she grew up. At the start of the novel, she returns to her beloved home after a seven-year hiatus in Dublin, during which time she made her debut in high society, learnt how to be a proper lady, and acquired a reputable fiancé. By all accounts, things are going well for Bridget. But she has returned to an Oakleigh that is simmering with unrest - and an Oakleigh that still houses her childhood best friend, stable hand Cormac. As their relationship rekindles into something more than friendship, it isn't long before Bridget's picture-perfect upper class life begins to show its cracks.
So this was a romance - and its love story was pretty classic. Working-class lad meets upper-class lady who's already trapped in a socially-motivated betrothal; they're friends who become lovers, but their relationship is forbidden. Undeniably star-crossed. But although Bridget and Cormac's situation echoed the many typical romances that have come before it, this book was in no way basic, boring, or trite. The 'forbidden love' trope is a classic because it works, and Murphy pulls it off compellingly.
The thing that made this book beautiful was the believability of its characters. The leading pair are particularly well-drawn, with clear values but nuanced and evolving motives and feelings. We know what drives them, and what matters to them. Bridget is compassionate, humble, and attuned to fairness - qualities which allow her to see the humanity behind Cormac's servant status. She regrets the snobbery of her peers, is even ashamed of herself at times. Yet she can't fully shake her sense of societal duty, and she is terribly afraid of her mother. Cormac is the only remaining man in his family, which makes him fiercely protective of his mother and sisters, courageous and loyal even to his own detriment. Less impulsive than Bridget, he is careful and measured, and harbours deep worry about the consequences of overstepping his mark.
Everything that happened in the book - everything that Bridget and Cormac said and did - aligned with these characteristics. As a result, their whole story was utterly convincing as it unfolded on the page, and their every feeling was real. Other characters were more flat: the bumbling butler served only for slightly awkward comic relief, and Bridget's overbearing mother Lady Courcey was somewhat of a pantomime villain in her monochrome heartlessness. But this didn't matter, because the characters we are meant to feel attached to were so beautifully whole.
Murphy's specialism is historical fiction, and the historical setting of A Class Apart certainly amplified the stakes of her drama. The Irish countryside is idyllic, but the political landscape is far from peaceful. The landowners are wealthy English aristocrats, intent on the 'improvement' of the country; the tenants are downtrodden Irish locals, overworked for little pay, and forbidden from praying their Catholic prayers and even speaking in their own Gaelic tongue. The mutual resentment is fierce, and full-scale rebellion is but a breath away.
This unrest bubbled away, millimetres from the surface, throughout the whole book. The whole estate seemed perched on a knife edge, and Bridget and Cormac's burgeoning love tipped the balance ever more dangerously. Their relationship challenged social boundaries in so many dimensions: not just class, but nationality, literacy, religion. They were also forced to overcome discrimination against their age, and in Bridget's case, gender. At every turn there was entrapment, in every chapter the overpowering force of 'propriety' - and all of it so arbitrary. Murphy captured the injustice so vividly. As a reader you root for Bridget and Cormac, not simply because they love each other, but because their love represents a rebellion against an unfair and unequal society.
I occasionally found Murphy's prose a little stilted, particularly in the dialogue. She had a tendency towards long polysyllables, which didn't always feel realistic coming out of a character's mouth. Perhaps this language choice was part of her historicity, but to me it sometimes felt like she'd gone back through her work with a thesaurus, and the tone was thus a little more aloof than it perhaps needed to be.
However, the style did not detract from the overall effect of A Class Apart. I found it compelling, convincing, and historically insightful - and without giving anything away, its ending was a perfect setup for the sequel...
