Irish author Louise O'Neill explains why she chose to write a female anti-hero for her latest novel, Almost Love, and how she keeps the faith when dating as a famous feminist.
Then and now. Louise O'Neill's latest novel Almost Love follows Sarah Fitzpatrick, an artist from Tipperary, in both her past and present.
Then: In a manipulative relationship with Matthew, a wealthy man twice her age who is unkind but, to his begrudging credit, never misleading in his intentions of a casual relationship.
Now: In the present day, Sarah can be found mistreating her current boyfriend Oisín and pining for a man that made her nothing but miserable.
At first glance of this novel, one might only see a feminist author writing about a vulnerable young woman in an unhealthy relationship with an older man - a storyline that will no doubt have the gossip mill churning.
On closer inspection, O'Neill has created a female protagonist who holds the complexities of an actual human being - a rarity in the world of fiction. Neither Madonna nor whore, this leading lady is frustrating, vulnerable and as abusive as she is abused.
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Speaking to Louise about her latest work, it is clear to see that a relatable lead was an absolute must.
"As an author, I'm not actually that interested in whether my characters are likeable or not, I just want them to feel very real. I want the reader to say: 'I know this woman, she's my sister' or 'She's my friend'."
An admirable goal considering that, even in 2018, women are still most often portrayed as one-dimensional characters; wives, girlfriends, and girls next door.
While the likes of Tony Soprano, Dexter, and Walter White are beloved by fans for their intricately flawed characters, women are only afforded the same nuances on rare occasions, and usually only following a particularly violent assault; think Lisbeth Salander, The Bride, Jessica Jones.
"I want to explore those darker parts of ourselves because that's what makes us human, and I suppose I don't see that as much [...] It's more rare to see that with women, I think. The idea of the male anti-hero is very well explored in pop culture and in our cultural psyche as a whole, but his female counterpart, his female peers, they just don't exist.
According to Louise, anti-heroes make the most sense for her as she strives to build characters with emotional honesty.
"I want to see women represented in fiction - in TV, in movies - that reflect the truth, that are like the women that I see in my everyday life. The women that I know, the women that I love - that I love despite their imperfections and I hope they love me despite of mine."
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Reading Almost Love is often an unsettling experience. Sarah's unhealthy relationship with Matthew is uncomfortably on the nose, so much so that you could swear you've heard much of the dialogue before - or even said it.
The sensation is a purposeful one that was inspired by Louise's own reading of Chris Kraus' I Love Dick, a book that details obsession, desire and infatuation. When it came to researching these kinds of relationships, Louise only needed to look to her peers.
"I started having these conversations with my friends. All of these beautiful, intelligent, driven, successful, funny women and we all had these stories of just how we had allowed our personal boundaries to be transgressed - all in the name of love?"
In a year where consent has become a hot-button topic, Sarah's story makes for a particularly interesting read. While Matthew is dismissive, uncaring and often rude, he never promises anything different - often holding the door wide open for her to leave.
What's so exhausting about Sarah's story is that she stays, over and over again, complicit in her mistreatment.
"Some people find it more difficult to find that compassion for Sarah because she is complicit in her own degradation and actually, that's what haunts her afterwards, is that 'No, I wasn't a victim, I was a willing participant in this strange game - I was complicit...' - and I think that is really hard for women to deal with afterwards."
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Despite her flaws, Louise insists that her protagonist is a loveable character. A woman who has failed to deal with her personal issues and is facing the consequences.
Many readers will recognize Sarah as a modern woman failing to build a modern relationship - something that Louise can relate to. In an interview with The Irish Times, she resolved that the hardest place to maintain her feminism was in a relationship. She elaborates further, for our benefit:
"I think that we're trying to forge new ways of being in the world with men and women - trying to figure out this new space and how we're going to occupy it. But I think when it comes to heterosexual relationships, we've seen so many representations of those relationships - either our parents or our grandparents or in fiction, on TV, in movies - so those ideas of traditional gender roles are very deeply entrenched, they've been very much reinforced in our consciousness and our awareness. So because of that, it's very easy to fall back into those patterns when you get into a relationship."
Looking to the future, the Cork woman hopes that many of us can look to same-sex marriage for guidance.
"I hope that they can maybe teach us, or we could learn from them, ways of being in a relationship where the roles that people play are defined by their individual strengths and by their own desires rather than just by mere virtue of gender. I think that's actually a lesson that we really could learn from our gay brothers and sisters."
So, after writing numerous articles and books on the inequality, degradation and emotional humiliation facing women looking for love, how does Louise keep the faith when it comes to dating?
"I am constantly very optimistic. I have friends who have these amazing boyfriends and husbands; my own father is just one of the most wonderful people that I know - so all the good ones are taken, basically," she laughed.
"I think that I still have hope because I would like to meet someone to share my life with, and sometimes it can feel quite daunting and, for me, it's not just the aspect of whether someone is going to allow me the full space to be myself, but as someone who is kind of in a public role, or has a certain level of success, it's been really interesting to see that certain men are uncomfortable with that and want you to play a slightly more subservient role.
"I think it's about trying to find someone who will allow me to shine a bit - I know that probably sounds a bit self-aggrandizing, but I think it has to be more of an equal partnership in the true sense of the word rather than one feeling that they have to dominate you just because - as I said - mere virtue of their gender."
Louise O'Neill's Almost Love is in bookshops now; her upcoming book The Surface Breaks: A Reimagining of The Little Mermaid is set for release this coming May. Her earlier novel Asking for It? is also being brought to the stage, with a cast that includes Lauren Coe, Paul Mescal, Venetia Bowe, Seán Doyle and Kwaku Fortune. The play will premiere at the Everyman in Cork on June 15, and will later run at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin this November.
