Book review: A captivating read that’s hard to forget

'The Wildelings' explores how our childhoods impact on us and our relationships and exposes the vulnerability of young adults trying to adapt to the world

Lisa Harding draws on her own experience as an actress and gives us a remarkable insight into the career, its challenges, and meaning. File picture: Darragh Kane

• The Wildelings 
• Lisa Harding
• Bloomsbury, €16.99 

Lisa Harding’s third novel is about relationships, obsession, control, and guilt.

Jessica and Linda have been best friends since their first day at school. 

Both are from homes which are broken in different ways. 

Growing up, Linda spent most of her time at Jessica’s house, where stepmother Sue was loving and supportive to both girls.

When they reach 18, they seize the opportunity for a new life at Wilde, an elite university in Dublin.

Narrated by Jessica, the novel opens with her first appointment with a therapist. 

Her husband has left her, and it is decades after the events at Wilde which have shaped her life.

Dr Collins suggests she writes down her memories and they are intertwined with Jessica’s reactions to the therapist who challenges her perceptions of her own behaviour years before.

From the beginning there is an underlying tension as the reader knows that a tragic event happened at Wilde in 1992 but has to wait to find out about it until almost the end of the novel.

Jessica is not a likeable character, she is self-absorbed, she has always been the dominant one in her friendship with Linda, and once they are in Dublin she decides how much Sue will feature in her life. 

She’s used to always being in the lead, both on stage and in life. 

Once at Wilde, the girls quickly start to grow apart as Jessica becomes more self-involved and focuses on her acting and her French boyfriend Jacques. 

She pushes Linda aside, who eventually meets Mark, a philosophy student a few years older than them. He’s also a playwright, and controlling.

He helps Linda grow independent of Jessica, but he also speaks for her, even dresses her. 

Though Jessica hates him on sight, she becomes involved with Mark through her love of acting. 

His influence on both girls draws them into dark, manipulative events.

Jessica is an interesting, well fleshed out character. 

She struggles at Wilde with how others react to her, she is used to being in charge and now she has to cope with others who are not prepared to let her get away with her selfishness, her unkindness, her jealousy. 

Sadly, she is aware of her flaws but cannot stop herself. It is only decades later that, through her therapist’s help, she understands herself and what was happening. 

The narrative moves between the present and the past, so we learn about Jessica’s memories but also her own analysis of her past. 

This immerses the reader in the process of reconciling trauma and healing.

Drawing on her own experience as an actress, Harding gives us a remarkable insight into the career, its challenges, and meaning. 

Most powerful is her exposure of the influence a director may have in handling his cast. 

Jessica is so ambitious about a possible acting career that she neglects her studies, the reason she is attending college. 

Approval means so much to her that when she receives a negative review for a performance she is devastated.

The novel explores how our childhoods impact on us and our relationships and exposes the vulnerability of young adults trying to adapt to the world. 

The main characters have experienced hardship and hurt in some way, which means they are vulnerable to manipulation, obsession and jealousy. 

They are too young to recognise that they may be experiencing toxic relationships.

Harding’s style of writing is direct and intense, giving her novel a raw and emotional tone. It’s a compelling read, one which will be hard to forget.