Molly Fox's Birthday
Deirdre Madden

reviewed by Helen Lederer

A seemingly unassuming story quickly ensnares the reader with its confiding tone. The narrator – a female playwright is staying alone in the house of her best friend. The friend turns out to be a successful actress who is away working in New York. The writing is punctuated with detailed observations about the possessions found in the empty house, from the kinds of   ceramic vases her friend has collected, to the bath oil she uses, and indeed the exact kind of food the narrator will buy for her lunch. But as the narrator sets herself up to start writing a new play, an almost formal examination of her friendship with Molly Fox takes over. It is from these musings the story then segues into a robust but persistent questioning of the meaning of the self through friendship, through ones families, and through ones tolerance or propensity to solitude. Are we formed by our inheritance or do we form ourselves? 

The artistic professions of the three main characters serve as a useful foil for these questions. As a playwright the narrator (who is nameless) can observe others without participation. As an actress, Molly Fox can spend her life depicting others but rarely reveal herself, while the university friend Andrew, is a revered commentator of art and never has to commit to being an artist himself.

The fact they are all successful is not questioned – it is a confident backdrop to the more concerning aspects of living with one’s self and through other people.

None of the characters are champions of intimacy yet they are not complete ‘isolees’. They have affairs at various times, experience grief, hatred, and responsibilities for others. The narrator’s feelings for her friend makes for a strangely lonely but haunting read. Its persistent truthfulness gets under the skin .It offers a harsh examination of humanity but is also accepting of how we all really are. Loving but destructive, selfish but generous, lonely and alone.  

The story weaves forward and backward in time – from details of Molly’s acting career, to how the narrator gave up a love affair – (to stop herself from being happy), to the one time she and Andrew slept together. Then just as one has marvelled at the detail of a scene, the conundrum about friendship presents itself and off we go into an enticing but distant canvas of polemics.  

The narrator’s brother Tom is a priest who provides a symbolic answer to some of the questions in the story – but his ‘peace’ at being alone is somewhat easier to digest since his purpose is to serve God and not himself. There is a hint that his feelings for Molly may be stronger than he lets on, but this is left rather unsaid.

While the narrator is the lynchpin and common point between all characters – the less acceptable face of friendship and jealousies is allowed to surface. While Molly is generous with her possessions – she also ‘takes over’ the narrator’s friends, which in turn leaves the narrator feeling ungenerous for minding. 

Do we end up liking Molly Fox or the narrator? Not completely. But it is this universal condition of contradiction in our selves that Deidre Madden has so hauntingly shown – which makes this book a page turner. I loved it. The mix of mundane detail with fierce emotion provides a comforting and witty suggestion that we are all the same at some deep level – yes – even those in the ‘arts’, if only we could have the courage to face it.