The Whipping Club by Deborah Henry
Published: February 10, 2012
Publisher: T.S. Poetry Press
Age Demographic: Adult Contemporary
Pages: 312
Inspired by her heritage and research of the Irish Industrial School system, Henry’s auspicious debut chronicles a couple’s attempt to save their son from horrific institutions.
Marian McKeever and Ben Ellis are not typical young lovers in 1957 Dublin, Ireland; she’s Catholic and teaches at Zion School, and he’s Jewish and a budding journalist. The two plan to wed, but their families object to an interfaith marriage. And when Marian becomes pregnant, she doesn’t tell Ben.
Coerced by Father Brennan (a Catholic priest who is also her uncle), Marian goes to Castleboro Mother Baby Home, an institution ruled by Sister Paulinas and Sister Agnes where “sins are purged” via abuse; i.e., pregnant girls are forced to mow the lawn by pulling grass on their hands and knees. Marian is told that her son, Adrian, will be adopted by an American family. The riveting storyline provides many surprises as it fast-forwards to 1967 where Marian and Ben are married and have a 10-year-old daughter. Marian’s painful secret emerges when she learns that her son was dumped in an abusive orphanage not far from her middle-class home and Sister Agnes is his legal guardian. Thus begins a labyrinthine journey through red tape as the couple fight to regain their firstborn child.
Ultimately, 12-year-old Adrian is placed in the Surtane Industrial School for Boys, which is rife with brutality and sexual abuse at the hands of “Christian Brother Ryder.” Though unchecked church power abounds, this is not a religious stereotype or an indictment of faith. Hateful characters like Brother Ryder are balanced with compassionate ones, such as a timid nurse from the Mother Baby Home. Father Brennan deepens into a three-dimensional character who struggles to do what is right.
Henry weaves multilayered themes of prejudice, corruption and redemption with an authentic voice and swift, seamless dialogue. Her prose is engaging, and light poetic touches add immediacy. For example, when Marian returned to Mother Baby Home after 11 years, she “opened the car door and stepped onto the gravel, wanting to quiet its crunch, like skeletons underneath her shoes.” Echoing the painful lessons of the Jewish Holocaust, Henry’s tale reveals what happens when good people remain silent.
A powerful saga of love and survival.
Marian McKeever and Ben Ellis are not typical young lovers in 1957 Dublin, Ireland; she’s Catholic and teaches at Zion School, and he’s Jewish and a budding journalist. The two plan to wed, but their families object to an interfaith marriage. And when Marian becomes pregnant, she doesn’t tell Ben.
Coerced by Father Brennan (a Catholic priest who is also her uncle), Marian goes to Castleboro Mother Baby Home, an institution ruled by Sister Paulinas and Sister Agnes where “sins are purged” via abuse; i.e., pregnant girls are forced to mow the lawn by pulling grass on their hands and knees. Marian is told that her son, Adrian, will be adopted by an American family. The riveting storyline provides many surprises as it fast-forwards to 1967 where Marian and Ben are married and have a 10-year-old daughter. Marian’s painful secret emerges when she learns that her son was dumped in an abusive orphanage not far from her middle-class home and Sister Agnes is his legal guardian. Thus begins a labyrinthine journey through red tape as the couple fight to regain their firstborn child.
Ultimately, 12-year-old Adrian is placed in the Surtane Industrial School for Boys, which is rife with brutality and sexual abuse at the hands of “Christian Brother Ryder.” Though unchecked church power abounds, this is not a religious stereotype or an indictment of faith. Hateful characters like Brother Ryder are balanced with compassionate ones, such as a timid nurse from the Mother Baby Home. Father Brennan deepens into a three-dimensional character who struggles to do what is right.
Henry weaves multilayered themes of prejudice, corruption and redemption with an authentic voice and swift, seamless dialogue. Her prose is engaging, and light poetic touches add immediacy. For example, when Marian returned to Mother Baby Home after 11 years, she “opened the car door and stepped onto the gravel, wanting to quiet its crunch, like skeletons underneath her shoes.” Echoing the painful lessons of the Jewish Holocaust, Henry’s tale reveals what happens when good people remain silent.
A powerful saga of love and survival.
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The Whipping Club is a beautifully written powerfully haunting debut novel, that will stir readers emotions. It is an emotionally rivetting portrayal of love, loss, pain, pain, cruelty, and lies upon lies. Deborah Henry's horrifying tale of mankind's malicious cruelty will certainly leave readers questioning their own moral compass. This novel certainly isn't a happy story full of love and perfect endings, but rather a story filled with good intentions, heartbreak, and guilt wrapped up in a multitude of lies that cut to the core. The stark raw honest, with which Henry tackles in this emotionally gripping novel, will simply knock readers to their knees.
The pain and tension hanging in the balance between Adrian and the family who gave him up, is thick enough to choke. His story is hard, painful, and one of the most honest and raw that I've personally read in a long while. He's been given away, abused in so many deplorable ways, and then re-claimed as if he could be salvaged the way an old tire would be for a spare. It's almost as if he's been punished for being born, "I suppose my crime was being born," to put it in his own words.
The Whipping Club is an emotionally powerful and captivating novel that is absolutely hard to put down and even harder to read. It is definitely a book that is rich in the inhumanity in humanity and that will call everything readers ever felt or thought was right or wrong, into question. Deborah Henry has written an extraordinary debut novel that will leave readers breathless and wanting to see more literary works to come in the future.
Deborah Henry attended American College in Paris and graduated cum laude from Boston University with a minor in French language and literature. She received her MFA in creative writing at Fairfield University and has the passionate support of many first-class novelists including Jacquelyn Mitchard, Pulitzer prize winner Robert Olen Butler, Da Chen, Michael White, Martine Bellen, Caroline Leavitt, Dawn Tripp Susan Henderson and Irishman Thomas Cooke, Emmy-award winning writer and director. Her first review of THE WHIPPING CLUB, a Kirkus Review earned a Kirkus Star. Deborah is an active member of The Academy of American Poets, a board member of CavanKerry Press and a patron of the Irish Arts Center in New York.
That short, one sentence quote just broke my heart.
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