We review the debut novel by Irish novelist Naoise Dolan – Exciting Times.
Exciting Times is the debut novel by Naoise Dolan, released in April 2020. The novel follows Ava, a young Dubliner in residence in Hong Kong and her inability to connect and engage in relationships that she sees as a power game rather than an emotional entanglement. Dolan is caustically witty and her prose is razor sharp in her analysis of Ava’s emotions and relationships. Citing Sally Rooney herself as a mentor, Rooney’s influence is clear in Dolan’s writing, in her ability to capture the emptiness and space between emotions as cleverly and astutely as Rooney does.
There is, of course, an emptiness in the novel and Ava’s interactions that make her immensely difficult to relate to – she is not an easy protagonist, neither is the snobby Julian or the supernaturally perfect Edith (Ava’s closest thing to a love match in the novel). Whilst Dolan implicitly understands Ava’s psyche, Julian and Edith’s characters are not fleshed out enough to feel comfortable. So, whilst the novel moves swiftly along, this is more down to the sparing prose than it is through a need to know what happens next in Ava’s interactions with her environment. More than this, there is a definite space in her prose in her engagement with Hong Kong itself, Dolan does not fully realise the capability of placing Ava here – in order to truly elevate this work, Ava’s interaction with Hong Kong itself seems sorely lacking. Exciting Times is a worthwhile read, set squarely in the 20s literature environment but it does seem clear at times that this is a debut, and in retrospect there are spaces in the story that are not down to the sparse prose.
Exciting Times is available for purchase here.
