Ireland’s “broken” homes in the novels of Tana French

Abstract

This paper argues that Tana French effectively uses the figure of house and home in order to comment critically on the state of the nation in her Irish crime novels. The analysis focuses on three se-lected novels: The Likeness (2008), Broken Harbor (2012) and The Searcher (2020). It demonstrates that in The Likeness, French uses the historical and literary tradition of the Big House to comment on the economic and class tensions during the period of the economic boom known as the Celtic Tiger.2 In Broken Harbor, she employs the gothic mode of writing in her portrayal of the consequences of the credit crunch. And finally, in The Searcher, she debunks the myth of rural Ireland as a pastoral retreat and safe haven. The paper applies Susan Fraiman’s notions of “shelter writing” and “alternative homemakers” (2017) in order to show how French uses domestic space and domestic rituals in order to problematize gender stereo-types and undermine conservative expectations about the nuclear family.