Collins Captures the Immaturity and Mayhem of Adolescence
THE GARDEN OF EDEN ALL OVER AGAIN
By Jude Collins
Simon & Schuster
ISBN 1-903-65023-2
Reviewed by Sharon Greer
Coming of age stories have always fascinated me. Whether in literature or film, a good, well-written narrative can convey the confusion, isolation and pain of adolescence transforming itself into adulthood.
In Jude Collins’s inventive, original novel, The Garden of Eden All Over Again, the author manages to capture all of these complexities in both a poignant and humourous way. The world of boyhood uncertainties and restlessness is explored in this wonderful story of a naive 17-year old in 1959 Omagh, Northern Ireland. As the new decade approaches, the protagonist, Jim McGrath, finds himself facing many challenges as he attempts to negotiate his future life.
Wrestling with the option of studying to become a priest, Jim is tortured by constant sexual thoughts of naked, young women. His alter ego, in the form of Debbie Reynolds (well, it is 1959) provides the reader with some funny moments. His encounters with a couple of the local girls produces more insight into Jim’s character.
By contrast, Jim’s friend, Presumer Livingstone couldn’t care less about priesthood, school or what lies ahead. Humiliated and beaten by one of the Christian Brothers, Presumer is from the poor side of town and treated cruelly by the Brother.
Presumer becomes preoccupied with settling some scores around town and draws Jim into very risky situations. One in particular forces Jim into confronting some unpleasant aspects of himself.
Added to all these challenges, Jim has been disfigured in his childhood. At the age of five, while his mother is out feeding the hens, he climbs up and places his right cheek on the hotplate of the cooker scarring himself for life. As he explains when a female friend asks him why he did it, “To hear the wee man in the cooker make a speech. An uncle of mine said there was a wee Orangeman lived inside the cooker who gave a speech if you listened hard enough.”
Several comic pages in the book brought me back to my childhood struggles with confession. Jim’s visit to the confessional box is priceless as he grapples with what “sins” to tell the priest.
“Right, concentrate. Confess the ordinary things first. I told lies ten.....15 times. I was disobedient.....three times. I let my mind wander at prayer....fifty? Seventy?” Finally he stammers out what he has been trying to work up to – confessing to masturbation and “unclean” thoughts.
Collins has truly captured the immaturity and mayhem of adolescence, especially during that time period. His impressionable 17-year old character’s naive romanticism about women, marriage and having children is wonderfully communicated in this little gem of a book.
Jude Collins is a senior lecturer in education at the University of Ulster. He is also a columnist with The Irish News, contributes regularly to BBC Radio Ulster/BBC 5 Live and has written two collections of short stories. The Garden of Eden All Over Again is his first novel.
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