Published in paperback 13th May 2021 by Headline.
From the cover of the book:
The Glorious Guinness Girls are the toast of London and Dublin society. Darlings of the press, Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh lead charmed existences that are the envy of many.
But Fliss knows better. Sent to live with them as a child, she grows up as part of the family and only she knows of the complex lives beneath the glamorous surface.
Then, at a party one summer's evening, something happens which sends shockwaves through the entire household.
In the aftermath, as the Guinness sisters move on, Fliss is forced to examine her place in their world and decide if where she finds herself is where she truly belongs.
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The time between the First and Second World Wars is one of my absolute favourite periods of history, especially anything about the Roaring Twenties, and I absolutely love the kind of book that mixes fact and fiction in the way Emily Hourican does to perfection in The Glorious Guinness Girls.
Hourican tells her story from the point of view of the fictional Felicity (Fliss) Burke, who is sent to live with the Guinness family in their Dublin house Glenmaroon, to be a companion to the three Guinness daughters Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh.
We begin in 1978, when Fliss is sent on an errand to the faded, crumbling Glenmaroon to retrieve some old documents which have been found in an attic, at the behest of the long grown Guinness girls who are desperate to prevent any chance of something accidentally coming into the possession of the media. As she sifts through the old papers, Fliss finds herself swept back in time, and the story then spins out from the moment she arrived here as a ten year old child, with the present occasionally breaking through her reminiscences.
In 1918, Fliss leaves a home where her mother is overwhelmed with grief at the loss of her husband in the First World War. She is used to being overlooked and held at arms length by all, except her beloved brother Hughie, and is is unsure of her new position in the Guinness household. But Fliss soon becomes used to living in a world of luxury and ease as the beloved friend of the three girls she finds herself being raised with; adept at gauging their capricious moods, calming troubled waters, and complying dutifully with the requests of the family.
As the political landscape of Ireland changes beyond the walls of Glenmaroon, troubled times intrude upon the genteel calm of the Guinness family, culminating in an incident in connection with Fliss' brother that rocks them to the core. The time comes for the family to move on, travel the world, and leave the dangers of Ireland behind, but can Fliss do the same?
After a break, the Guinness family relocate to London and recall Fliss from her exile in the strangling atmosphere of her mother's rotting home, but something has changed in the interim. Fliss finds herself looking at the rarified lives of her childhood companions differently, and reassessing what lies in her own future.
The Glorious Guinness Girls is a fabulous, sweeping tale that takes us deep into the world of the upper-classes in the 1920s, whilst incorporating oodles of detail about the political and social changes on both sides of the Irish Sea. The Guinness girls live in an environment protected from the grime and poverty outside the walls of their splendid homes and gardens, but Hourican cleverly crosses the gulf between these very different worlds by telling her story through the eyes of Fliss, who will always be an outsider, despite being brought up with Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh.
My favourite parts of this tale take place in the heady atmosphere of 1920's London, as the Guinness girls become enveloped in the frenzied atmosphere of a privileged set of young people desperate to push against the strictures of their staid parents, and the shadow of the lost generation who died on the battlefields of the Great War - the bright young people with aristocratic credentials, rubbing shoulders with famous figures from the worlds of entertainment, literature and fashion, that we associate so much with this period in time. The glitz and glamour, the decadence and debauchery of this set is laid out beautifully in these pages, but we get to see how fragile this atmosphere of forced jollity is too, and the emptiness that often lies underneath the veneer of elegance and fun - and as this endless party plays out against the reality of ordinary mortals, we know that social change is on the way that will bring all this dissipation to an end.
I was struck by how successfully Hourican manages to show that however degenerate these bright you people may seem, there is a sadness behind the mask that many of these characters show to the world: the glimpses of hopelessness, frustration at a lack of purpose, and the weariness that comes with the effort to always having to put on a show was quite intriguing. Although it was hard to like the Guinness girls themselves, their desperate need to act in the way expected of them as the toast of society, make good matches, and become dutiful wives was compelling.
This is an engaging book, blending fact seamlessly into a fictional coming of age tale, with a little gentle romance, and a dollop of vice. It's sure to set you on a path of discovering more about many of the fascinating characters mentioned here alongside the Guinness girls too!
The Glorious Guinness Girls is available to buy now in hardback, e-book, paperback and audio formats from your favourite book retailer.
Thank you to Antonia Whitton at Headline for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
Emily Hourican is a journalist and author. She has written features for the Sunday Independent for fifteen years, as well as Image magazine, Conde Nast Traveler and Woman and Home. She was also editor of The Dubliner Magazine.
Emily's first book, a memoir titled How To (Really) Be A Mother was published in 2013. She is also the author of novels The Privileged, White Villa, The Outsider and The Blamed. Her first novel about the Guinness sisters The Glorious Guinness Girls was published in 2020.
She lives in Dublin with her family.
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