You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here

Macken debuts with an overfull take on female friendship and the frustrations of early adulthood. Katie Devane grows up in rural Glenbruff, Ireland, with Evelyn, her self-centered best friend, and Katie’s needy adopted cousin, Maeve. At 16, in the 1990s, Katie and Evelyn fantasize of fleeing the depressed town to become great artists, but things change when new classmate Pamela Cooney arrives from Dublin as part of the country’s rural resettlement program. Pamela shows off fresh hip-hop dance moves and looks to Katie “like a doll fresh out of a box.” After Pamela’s unexplained disappearance, the girls continue to rue the attention paid to her. Macken’s narrative skips quickly through time, with Katie leaving for college in Dublin, then graduating and working in advertising. After she burns out at a hyper-stressful agency, Katie returns home in her 20s to a mercurial Evelyn and a newly assured Maeve. A surprise announcement from Evelyn about her film project makes Katie immensely jealous and pushes her into deeper self-doubt about her own aspirations to work in film. Macken’s downplaying of major events, such as Pamela’s disappearance and Katie’s college years, resonates with the solipsism of youth, but can make story lines seem undeveloped. Still, Macken gets a lot of mileage from Katie’s beguiling voice and sardonic humor. In the end, this is too scattershot to make an impact. (Aug.)