Your Cheatin' Heart

Annie McCartney
Timewarner Books
€15.99

After reading this. I’m finding it real difficult not to write in a Southern drawl. Set mainly in Chattanooga, Tennessee, this is the story of a naïve Belfast girl, Maggie Lennon, arriving in the States with two friends for a working holiday. When their flat is flooded after the upstairs neighbour’s waterbed explodes (the result of strenuous sexual activity), and her friends eventually leave, Maggie finds herself moving in with the upstairs neighbour, Sharla Emma-Lea Ayn. And in her own words, ‘that is it. My life has changed forever.’

Sharla appraises her new friend’s assets, and decides that Maggie’s accent should be exploited. Accordingly, she takes her to a local radio station, where Maggie points out to the owner, Follie D Zollie, that he needs a ‘lady DJ’, it being ‘an oversight’ not to have one. Amused, Zollie, who loves British music, notes that her surname is Lennon. So he takes her on, and next thing Maggie knows, she is being introduced as ‘John Lennon’s cousin’ on the air.

The story is not only a hilarious insight into the workings of a small radio station, but gives a vivid portrayal of the launch of a young, foreign innocent into a wild world of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and the colourful, eccentric Southern characters who populate that world.

In the space of less than a year, Maggie’s life is transformed. Her openness, refreshing honesty and game-for-anything approach to life warms people to her, and she in turn responds to their humour and spontaneity.

Maggie is initiated into sex by a beautiful young surfer, and later falls in love with Nate, whose family owns half of Tennessee. Partying is no longer a few pints but a few snorts, and a lot more besides. Suddenly, after playing a number on the air that her sister sent over from Belfast, it becomes a hit, and she is rocketed to celebrity fame.

While there is less of a plotline than a narrative of events (and no sub-plot at all) the humour, the pace (it’s all in the present tense) and sheer curiosity keep those pages turning. I would like to have seen Maggie’s Belfast accent written phonetically too. But maybe it would have been too obscure for world readership.

An engagement, a marriage, and an incident with a gun – it’s all mayhem in this hilarious, spinning top of a tale.

Afric McGlinchey
Reviewed in Irish Examiner