Other People’s Lives Author: Kathleen MacMahon ISBN-13: 978-1-844-88674-6Publisher: Sandycove Guideline Price: £14.99Kathleen MacMahon, perhaps best known for her Women’s Prize longlisted novel Nothing but Blue Sky, and The Home Scar, returns with an insightful page-turner that centres on the burdens and blessings of family life, and the manifold shackles of being a woman in the “squashed middle”. Protagonist Justine is thrown into preparations for her daughter Ruth’s wedding, and while “sick of trying to remember every little thing”, she realises she hasn’t so much made life choices herself, as responded to the choices of others. When remembering how her own marriage began, Justine recalls that she “became (her husband John’s) girlfriend without ever being asked”. Life has continued in the same vein ever since, as Justine serves her family “on the path of least resistance”. This everyday heroine is all too recognisable. Justine takes on “the punishing relay” of the many needs of those around her, but her relentless self-sacrificing makes for an, at times, infuriating read. “It had long been Justine’s habit to do what other people wanted her to do.” Even her best friend Iseult finds her maddening: “You care too much. You wear me out.” Yet, it is only thanks to Justine that Iseult can enjoy life in Beirut, while Justine plays the part of dutiful daughter-in-law back home, caring for Iseult’s elderly parents – the caustic Lolly and easy-going Pa, as well as her troubled son, Finn.MacMahon writes of harried midlife with devastating accuracy, touching on the eternal flashpoints of Christmas: “It was a tradition, established in the early years of her marriage, for Justine to host Christmas.” And weddings. Justine would “have to put her own feelings aside, for tonight at least.” [ Kathleen MacMahon: ‘I think women writers are treated like mistresses’Opens in new window ]Her family are entitled, but Justine is complicit, expecting herself to always be available, even for her adult children. “It was a mystery to Justine how any mother could turn her phone off for hours at a time” when she is “on call twenty-four seven, in case any of her children needed her”.Other People’s Lives is aptly titled and considers the familial challenges of contemporary emigration and the cost of marriage, motherhood and enduring friendship.Readers who enjoyed Amazing Grace Adams and Where’d You Go Bernadette will devour this everywoman’s plight to be all things to all people. Catherine Higgins-Moore was awarded an Arts Council Agility Award in 2024 and longlisted for the Irish Novel Fair. She is a PhD candidate at Queen’s University’s Seamus Heaney Centre Belfast.