Book review: Breaking Point exposes the pressures facing women in all their roles

Society’s judgement on working mothers is demonstrated through the court case Susannah has to face, where her life is put under the microscope

Sun, 13 Feb, 2022 - 11:00

Review: Tina Neylon

This is the first novel by arts journalist, radio presenter, and reporter Edel Coffey. It exposes the pressures women experience when trying to pursue careers as well as motherhood, through its focus on two women, Susannah and Adelaide.

Dr Susannah Rice is a busy mother of two little girls, she’s a successful doctor, professor, author, and a parenting ‘guru’ on television, known as ‘Doctor Sue’. On the hottest day of the year in New York, Susannah’s routine is disrupted when her husband’s car won’t start and she has to drive him to work. As a result, she has to rush to make it to the hospital where she’s a highly respected paediatrician.

It’s hours before she realises she’s made a dreadful mistake. She’s left her infant daughter Louise in her car and it’s too late to save her. Susannah is later put on trial for negligence.

Her husband John is a successful engineer, and they appear to have an enviable life. Yet the description of their activities before the tragedy is sad, barren. When John leaves for work he doesn’t pause to say goodbye or kiss his family. “Their routine was so tightly wound that there was no space for unscheduled items, spontaneity.”

While admitting she would have preferred her children to be cared for by a family member, her mother perhaps, rather than taking them as infants to daycare, “it would never occur to Susannah to admit she needed help”.

Adelaide Gold used to be a New York Times journalist and has become a CNN reporter. When she is asked to cover Susannah’s story, she has her own reasons why she’s deeply affected by what has happened to baby Louise. The novel describes Adelaide’s tragic experiences 10 years earlier and why she changed career, moving well between the two periods, and demonstrating how they have affected her.

Society’s judgement on working mothers is demonstrated through the court case Susannah has to face, where her life is put under the microscope. She returns to work after her baby’s death, where she finds solace as it’s always been an important part of her life, but even that is criticised in court.

Covering the story forces Adelaide to face the feelings she has suppressed for a decade, helped by meeting a sympathetic man. When he asks her how she’s been affected, she confesses: “I really haven’t wanted to address my own experience at all … And it’s been easier … to push it away, living the way I’ve been living, working all hours, travelling a lot, working with people who don’t know me, don’t know about my past …until I got put on this story.”

It’s an interesting novel, in which Coffey exposes the pressures and expectations women experience trying to balance successful careers with their role as mothers. At times women punish themselves. For example, Susannah does not ask her mother for help. It’s as though we want to be seen as capable of doing everything equally well.