Having loved Una Mannion’s A Crooked Tree (reviewed here) I was hugely disappointed that I couldn’t participate in the blog tour for her latest book, Tell Me What I Am because I was away. However, my enormous thanks to Arabella Watkiss at Faber for sending me a copy of Tell Me What I Am in return for an honest review anyway. I’m thrilled to share that review today.

Published by Faber on 1st June in hardback, Tell Me What I Am is available for purchase in all the usual places including directly from the publisher here.

Tell Me What I Am

Two women, wrenched apart by a terrible crime, must find a way back to each other

When Deena Garvey disappears in 2004, she leaves behind a daughter and a sister.

Deena’s daughter grows up in the country. She learns how to hunt, when to seed the garden, how to avoid making her father angry. Never to ask about her absent mother.

Deena’s sister stays stuck in the city, getting desperate. She knows the man responsible for her sister’s disappearance, but she can’t prove it. Not yet.

Over fourteen years, four hundred miles apart, these two women slowly begin to unearth the secrets and lies at the heart of their family, and the history of power and control that has shaped them both in such different ways.

But can they reach each other in time? And will the truth finally answer the question of their lives:

What really happened to Deena Garvey?

My Review of Tell Me What I Am

Deena Garvey is missing.

I find books like Tell Me What I Am almost impossible to review because I fear I’ll sully their very existence simply trying to articulate how wonderful they are. And Tell Me What I Am is magnificent. It hits the reader hard in the solar plexus. It’s intense, beautifully written and mesmerising, despite, or perhaps because of, its underpinning theme of control and coercion. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. The way in which Una Mannion considers the ugliness of coercive control balanced against the beauty of her writing is nothing short of genius. 

Settings are described with such elegance and a lightness of touch that is breath-taking, placing the reader right inside the story. Similarly, I loved the fact that there are no speech marks because it feels as if any barrier between reader and character has been removed, involving the reader in the action as if they are part of the story too. Add in the recognisable cultural references to music, art or politics and Tell Me What I Am pulsates with a realism that is totally ensnaring. 

Initially I was disconcerted when I realised there are different points of view and time frames in Tell Me What I Am, because usually I have to concentrate hard to keep such storylines clear in my head, but Una Mannion writes with such precision and skill that I was effortlessly absorbed. Both Nessa and Ruby’s threads are vivid, astoundingly affecting, and perfectly presented. This is one of those books that is experienced rather than read. 

I thought Lucas was such a fantastic character. He’s thoroughly convincing, making him terrifying as well as plausible. Through him the lives of so many women are altered – his wife, his daughter, his mother. What is so unnerving is that whilst Lucas is a undoubtedly a monster, there’s no denying his upbringing of Ruby helps make her a wonderful young woman who is one of the most memorable characters I’ve encountered. This is such a disturbing element to Una Mannion’s writing. I loved the way Deena is missing from the beginning and yet her power drives the narrative. Without her there would be no story.

The mystery of Deena’s disappearance and Lucas’s custody of Ruby illustrates how women are still so frequently seen as inferior or second class and how much unfairness exists in our supposedly modern society. Reading Tell Me What I Am made me rage. It made me despair and it gave me hope. Whilst there’s almost unbearable tension, especially towards the denouement, Tell Me What I Am also illustrates profound positivity and strength. Through Nessa and Ruby we see the power of women, their stoicism and their ability, through both family and sheer will, to rise above circumstances and simply to be. Ruby may be looking for answers, but she is capable of finding what and who she is for herself. I found this element of the story incredibly and profoundly moving. 

With themes of loyalty and trust, mental and physical health and abuse, betrayal and redemption and so much more, Tell Me What I Am is authentic, affecting and, quite simply, amazing. It’s not to be missed and one of my favourite reads this year. I absolutely adored it.

About Una Mannion

Una Mannion was born in Philadelphia and lives in County Sligo, Ireland. She has won numerous prizes for her poetry and short stories including the Hennessy Emerging Poetry Award and Cúirt International Literary Festival short story prize. She edits The Cormorant, a broadsheet of prose and poetry and teaches on the Writing + Literature BA at Atlantic Technological University, Sligo. Her debut novel A Crooked Tree was shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and for the Dalkey Emerging Writer prize and was winner of the Kate O’Brien Prize 2022.

You can find out more about Una by visiting her website and finding her on Instagram. You can also follow Una on Twitter @una_m_mannion.