The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue by Edna O'Brien

First published: 1986; includes The Country Girls, 1960; The Lonely Girl, 1962; Girls in Their Married Bliss, 1964

Type of work: Novels

Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of plot: 1930’s-1980’s

Locale: Dublin and near Limerick, Ireland; London

Principal characters

• Caithleen “Kate” Brady, the “good girl”
• Bridget “Baba” Brennan, the “bad girl”
• Jacques “Mr. Gentleman” de Maurier, Kate’s first love
• Eugene Gaillard, Kate’s sometime lover, and her first husband
• Cash Gaillard, Kate and Eugene’s only child
• Frank Durack, Baba’s husband
• Tracy Durack, Baba’s daughter

The Story:

The Country Girls. Caithleen “Kate” Brady has an adolescent worldview. Her mother is beautiful but depressed, while Kate’s father is a vicious drunk who oppresses and abuses his wife and child. The Bradys own a farm with a beautiful house that they cannot afford. Kate is an only child.

Kate has a schoolgirl crush on Jacques de Maurier, a solicitor in their village who the townspeople have nicknamed Mr. Gentleman for his foreign and gallant ways.

Bridget “Baba” Brennan is Kate’s age but is spiteful, unintelligent, and beautiful. Baba frequently bullies and humiliates Kate, but Kate feels helpless to stop it. Somehow, the girls are drawn to one another. Kate envies Baba her kind father while Baba envies Kate her intelligence and quiet demeanor.

Kate earns a scholarship to a convent school, the same day she learns that her house is mortgaged and that Baba is going to the same convent in the fall. While at Baba’s house, Kate soon discovers that her mother has drowned while out with another man. Her childhood is over. She remains with the Brennan family over the summer and feels conflicted: She is happy to be safe from the fists of her father, but she is devastated by the loss of her mother.

Mr. Gentleman sees Kate waiting for the bus to Limerick and gives her a lift. At lunch, he flirts with her, and on the way home in the car, he holds her hand. This day becomes a precious memory for Kate.

The convent is a cold, loveless place where the girls band together against the grim atmosphere. Both girls despise it here and eventually are expelled for writing a vulgarity on a holy card. Reveling in their newfound freedom, Kate and Baba are unrepentant when chastised by their respective families over the incident. Caithleen has a distant and uncomfortable relationship with her father but finds a new friend in Mr. Brennan, Baba’s father, who protects her from the wrath of her own father. He is kind to her as well.

Baba goes to Dublin for technical school, and Caithleen goes with her because there is nothing left for her at home. She works in a grocery store, and both girls room with a German couple, Joanna and Gustav, in Dublin. Kate becomes more outspoken and does not let Baba bully her. They become close friends, and Baba frequently finds double dates with dull but rich older men. Neither girl is looking for a life partner at this point. Mr. Gentleman finds Kate in Dublin and begins an illicit, albeit chaste, affair with her.

Baba becomes ill with tuberculosis and goes to a sanatorium for six months. Meanwhile, Kate continues her affair with Mr. Gentleman, and they plan a vacation to Vienna to consummate their relationship. Kate waits for Mr. Gentleman to show up, but she receives only a telegram that ends their affair.

The Lonely Girl. Kate has been in Dublin for two years and is still working at the grocery store and living with Baba at Joanna and Gustav’s house. The girls date indiscriminately, typically rich older men, and happily remain unattached until Kate meets Eugene Gaillard at a party. Eugene, an older documentary-film director, treats the girls and another man to dinner, and Kate is smitten. She runs into Eugene the next week and is treated to tea. After weeks apart, Kate invites him to tea. They commence a relationship, even though he has reservations.

Eugene starts seeing Kate regularly and buys her a new coat. One evening he comes to tea at Kate’s lodging house, where he flirts all evening with Baba. Kate soon learns that Eugene is married, but she still agrees to go with him to his country house. At the country house, Eugene tells Kate the story of his marriage to a woman named Laura. Still, they continue dating. Kate spends Christmas with Eugene, who attempts to seduce her several times over the next few days; Kate is still a virgin and very afraid, so she does not have sex with him. She returns to her old life in Dublin, fearing that all is over with Eugene. He renews their relationship via letter.

Kate soon receives an anonymous letter admonishing her for her relationship with Eugene; her father comes to collect her. She returns home to her father’s house for a few days but manages to escape, back to Dublin. Afraid that he will find her at Joanna’s home, Kate flees to Eugene’s house. Her father and his cronies find her there, barge into the house, and assault Eugene. Kate is hiding under the bed in another room and can hear Eugene’s responses to her family’s questions. She suddenly realizes that Eugene does not feel the same way about their relationship as she does. This realization fuels her obsession further.

Eugene buys Kate a gold band, and in the evening they consummate their relationship. Kate is twenty-one years old, and Eugene is thirty-five years old.

Baba and her friend, The Body, come to visit, and Baba informs them that Kate’s father is coming to the house with the bishop. Kate’s father and the bishop show the next day, but Eugene does not let them in. Kate quickly learns that life with Eugene is not bliss. He is often cold and unforgiving, and his friends are pretentious and rude. Kate has frequent spells of moodiness to force emotion from Eugene, but these spells only irritate him.

Baba visits again and reveals that she is pregnant, but she later miscarries. Laura, Eugene’s wife, sends a letter threatening Eugene’s paternity rights if he marries Kate. Eugene’s friends (including an attractive American girl) visit. Eugene flirts outright with the American girl and acts dismissive toward Kate. She leaves Eugene while they are in Dublin for a lunch date, and is left there by him. Baba speaks with Eugene about the situation and informs Kate that her relationship with him is over.

The young women leave for England to start their lives over. Eugene does not see Kate off. In England, Kate enrolls at a university for an English degree and works in a shop, while Baba works as a receptionist at a hotel. The women are still rooming together, and Kate muses about how she is changing.

Girls in Their Married Bliss. Kate and Eugene are finally married and have a child. Baba marries a rich but uneducated Irishman named Frank Durack. Kate, unhappy in her marriage, begins an affair with a married man. After breaking off the affair, Kate is confronted by Eugene, who tells her that their marriage is over. She leaves and asks Baba for shelter, but Baba’s husband does not like Kate and forbids her staying there.

Baba willingly goes to dinner with Frank and lets Kate and Cash (Kate and Eugene’s son) stay at her house. When Baba and Frank return, they find an irate Eugene looking to retrieve Cash. Kate cannot find lodgings suitable for both her small son and herself, so she returns Cash to Eugene until she can find something better.

Meanwhile, Baba has an affair with Harvey, a bohemian drummer she had met at Frank’s party; she gets pregnant, and Harvey is the father. She never meets Harvey again and attempts to have an abortion, to no avail. She tells Frank the truth, and he accepts the child as his own. Frank adores the child and names her Tracy.

Kate works part time at a cleaner’s and lives in a bedsit. Eugene has taken up with Maura, his nanny-housekeeper. Kate tries to use Cash (and concern for him) as a way of getting to Eugene, but it only annoys him and makes her more desperate. She has a nervous breakdown, “accidentally” slashes her wrists, and survives.

Kate sees a psychiatrist. She remembers things about her mother that she had long forgotten and seems to see a connection between her mother’s desperate actions, including a need for love, and her own. She finds a house that is suitable for Cash and herself. The first night Cash visits, he begs to go back to his father’s house. Kate counts this as a maternal failure and falls deeper into depression.

Six months later, Kate goes to a party and has a less-than-fulfilling sexual encounter that makes her feel lonelier than ever. She attempts to get Cash from school but learns that he has been absent for five days. She later finds out that Eugene and Maura had taken Cash to Fiji to get away from Kate. Kate eventually lets Eugene maintain temporary custody. Baba visits Kate in hospital, who is recuperating from sterilization surgery.

The Epilogue. It is now twenty years later, and Kate drowns. Baba takes her friend’s remains back to Ireland and is to meet Cash there for the funeral. Earlier, Baba had been on holiday alone and was about to have an affair when she received news that Frank, her husband, had suffered a stroke. Baba immediately returned home to Frank and felt suffocated by his dependence on her.

Baba remembers that Kate eventually had regained custody of Cash. Kate and Baba had not talked in years because Frank felt intimidated by Kate. About one week before Kate’s death, Baba and Kate had finally reunited, and Kate had told Baba about her latest heartbreak.

Baba recalls how she felt touched when she told Cash about his mother’s death; his response demonstrated his deep understanding of and affection for his mother. Baba came to realize that it is impossible to understand the choices people make throughout the course of their lives.

Bibliography

Byron, Kristine. “’In the Name of the Mother . . . ’: The Epilogue of Edna O’Brien’s Country Girls Trilogy.” Women’s Studies 31 (July/August, 2002): 447-465. Analyzes the function of O’Brien’s epilogue and contrasts it with more traditional literary uses of epilogues in general. Argues that the epilogue does not provide closure to the saga of Kate and Baba, but rather provides disclosure, allowing for a rereading of the entire trilogy.

Colletta, Lisa, and Maureen O’Connor, eds. Wild Colonial Girl: Essays on Edna O’Brien. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. Any study on O’Brien demands a reading of this book, as it moves O’Brien from the periphery to central in the canon. O’Brien is considered in a multitude of different contexts, from feminist revisionist writer to writer-centered biographer. Central to this volume is Kristine Byron’s essay on O’Brien, which piqued the rediscovery of O’Brien in academic circles.

Greenwood, Amanda. Edna O’Brien. Tavistock, England: Northcote House/British Council, 2003. This is the first book-length study of O’Brien since 1975, and is a good primer on O’Brien and her work.

Ingman, Heather. “Edna O’Brien: Stretching the Nation’s Boundaries.” Irish Studies Review 10, no. 3 (2002): 253-265. Ingman posits O’Brien as a political writer and silences critics who type O’Brien as unworthy of critical attention.

Laing, Kathryn, Sinead Mooney, and Maureen O’Connor, eds. Edna O’Brien: New Critical Perspectives. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2006. This is another compilation of scholarly essays on Edna O’Brien which helps to demonstrate her mastery of her discipline and her incredible scope of genres. These essays stem from conference papers on O’Brien given at The National University of Ireland, Galway.

O’Connor, Maureen. “Edna O’Brien, Irish Dandy.” Irish Studies Review 13, no. 4 (2005): 469-477. O’Connor, one of the preeminent O’Brien scholars, speaks to critics who accuse O’Brien of not being Irish enough and not understanding the pulse of modern Ireland because she emigrated so long ago. She locates O’Brien’s writing style in the Irish literary tradition of the dandy and firmly establishes O’Brien’s “Irishness.”

Quintelli-Neary, Margaret. “Retelling the Sorrows in Edna O’Brien’s Country Girls Trilogy.” Nua: Studies in Contemporary Irish Writing 4, nos. 1/2 (2003): 65-76. Examines O’Brien’s treatment of female experiences in the Country Girls trilogy in relationship to tragedy.

Schrank, Bernice, ed. “Edna O’Brien Special Issue.” Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 22, no. 2 (1996). This was the first compendium of scholarly articles on Edna O’Brien and helped to establish her as an author worthy of critical attention. Prior to this time, O’Brien was viewed as a romance writer who dabbled in other genres.