An Itch For An Edge - Thoughts On Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story (Sinead O'Shea; 2024) as well as Kylie Minogue Tension Tour and Scissor Sisters 20th Anniversary Tour

To my shame, the only Edna O’Brien novel I’ve read is her final one, Girl. So I wondered if there’d be much for me to connect with in Blue Road, Sinead O’Shea’s documentary about the author’s life and struggle to maintain independence. I needn’t have worried, not only because the film turned out to be profoundly resonant, but also because it left me with exactly the same thought that haunted me long after I’d finished the extraordinary Girl: that I really ought to read more of O’Brien’s work.

As the documentary demonstrates, the fact that O’Brien published a single book — coming as she did from a poor, rural background which didn’t exactly foster a love of literature — was a feat in itself. The fact that she went on to publish more than thirty was nothing short of remarkable. The fact that she continued to work into her 90s and that she remained defiant in the face of countless attempts to quash her risk-taking feminism means that she deserves a much higher status than she appears to enjoy at the moment. Indeed, watching the film, you wonder why she isn’t cited more often as a vital cultural figure of the 20th century, right up there with Germaine Greer and Simone De Beauvoir.