Nesting

Irish writer O’Donnell debuts with a wrenching and scrupulously realistic narrative of a Dublin-based mother who, after years of emotional and sexual abuse, decides to leave her husband. In the spring of 2018, Ciara, mother of four-year-old Sophie and two-year-old Ella, has recently discovered she is pregnant again. She’s also reached a breaking point with her volatile and controlling husband Ryan, in whose presence she feels a “bright, animal” fear. While he is out of the house, she packs Sophie and Ella into her “beater” car with a few belongings. She has little money and nowhere to go (her mother and sister live in England, and the law forbids her from taking the children there without her husband’s permission), so she’s forced to take them to a hotel that doubles as a homeless shelter. O’Donnell follows Ciara through a year of sharing the room with Sophie and Ella as she doggedly tries to make a new life for them. She gets a job teaching English as a second language and makes friends with the other moms on her floor and with Diego, a Brazilian cleaner at the hotel. Meanwhile, Ryan pressures her to return and files a lawsuit to gain custody of the children. Ultimately hopeful, the narrative steers away from melodrama, offering instead a close examination of Ciara’s daily struggles and hard-won triumphs, all of which are depicted in crystalline and lyrical prose. It’s an unforgettable portrait of an all-too-common dilemma. (Feb.)