Nora Goes Off Script
By Annabel Monaghan
Hodder and Stoughton, UK
ISBN: 978-1399703017
272pp.

When life seems dark, gloomy, dull and heavy and one is feeling lonely and isolated, it is a good idea to pick up a book that can bring back smiles and humour and love into one’s being.

This is what I felt on reading American journalist and Young Adult writer Annabel Monaghan’s debut adult novel Nora Goes Off Script. A funny yet, at the same time, serious romance, it is a fairy tale, a fantasy. It is sad, but it is also fun.

Some of us may know of another Nora — Nora Helmer, the heroine of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s controversially famous work A Doll’s House. Ibsen’s Nora is the perfect, submissive, obedient wife and dutiful mother until she realises she can never be happy if she continues to live this way. She needs her freedom, she needs to discover her own identity and so she walks out of her marriage — her “doll’s house” — into the world in search of herself.

Nora Helmer’s maturity as a woman is the ultimate assertion of her agency and independence, Ibsen’s comment on the institution of marriage being that women must not remain under the control of invisible hands and the pressures of patriarchal society. Instead of the unfair hegemony of dominating male powers, marriage should be a joining of equals.

Monaghan’s Nora Hamilton is in a somewhat similar situation, although not entirely by her own choice. The recently divorced mother-of-two writes scripts for a television channel specialising in romances, but her latest — a stark and dark detour from her standard happily-ever-after style — has been bought by a major Hollywood studio, to be turned into a big film. The producers rent Nora’s own house to shoot the film and this is another stroke of immense good luck, because she desperately needs the extra money.

Well crafted, richly imagined and as funny as it is heart-wrenchingly moving, a debut adult novel from a Young Adult writer succeeds in making readers laugh, cry and laugh again

We then find out that the successful script is based on Nora’s own life, centring on the collapse of her marriage to the good-for-nothing Ben — an emotionally abusive narcissist who refuses to get a job and cares nothing about the kids.

Although Nora is still healing from this immense change in her life, it is interesting how Monaghan presents the divorce less as tragic and more as a reclaiming of freedom and peace after an unequal marriage.

“The house was bigger without his stuff and his anger. I cleared out furniture and luxuriated in the open spaces. I felt like the house could finally breathe. I started running before I wrote, and I swear my writing got better. I hoped my kids could feel how much stronger I was without Ben dragging me down.”

Without Ben, Nora discovers the energy within to be “mother and father and provider and playmate.” Without Ben, “I no longer needed to deflect his criticisms on the kids or myself. I was free.”

To play the role of degenerate Ben, the producers cast the handsome, famous and former “Sexiest Man Alive” Leo Vance. The story takes an exciting twist here, because it seems the hot Hollywood star will fall for our girl. For Nora, of course, Leo is the epitome of the unattainable: the sexy hero desired by everyone is someone she can only dream about.

To the elation of readers rooting for Nora, the dream does come true! On top of everything else, Leo is warm and affectionate with the children, who take to him immediately. He plays with them and they share their problems and secrets with him. This makes it not just a romance between a scriptwriter and film star, but also a dream family story.

But even though everything appears to fall perfectly in place — Nora now has a fulfilling life with kids, friends, a career that she’s fabulous at and a sublime man by her side — will the dream work in the long run? Will it last?

No.

Leo goes off to shoot another film and effectively disappears. Nora and her children wait for him to return. They wait to hear from him. When no shred of reassurance comes, Nora is heartbroken and the children sink into depression.

But Nora picks up the pieces of her shattered life once more and turns her heartbreak into another script about love and loss, about what it means to lose what one loves, about loneliness and the unquenchable need to communicate and connect.

That’s not how Monaghan ends her book, though. There is much more to come, which will mercifully put the smile back on the reader’s face.

Well crafted, richly imagined and as funny as it is heart-wrenchingly moving, the story — told entirely from Nora’s perspective — succeeds in making readers laugh, cry and laugh again. Nora’s simplicity and naivety make her very easy to like and I would imagine many women will relate to her.

As her relationship with Leo blossoms and she goes through a process of growth, Nora becomes a courageous, funny, intelligent and self-reliant woman who more than steps up to the plate as a single mother.

She becomes more assertive for herself, too. Like any woman anywhere, Nora dreams of having a little space for herself, where she can be alone to find moments of quiet and peace. A room of one’s own, as the English writer Virginia Woolf had wanted for all women, where they could delve into their full creative potential.

Nora fights for this space — a one-room structure behind her home, complete with a fireplace, a writing desk and a daybed for naps — because “daydreaming and talking about things is a good way to process anger. I just write and try to create a world I can control for a little while.”

When she manages to get that space, one cheers her victory. Because of her endearing resilience and sense of humour, when the book ends, one feels proud of how far she’s come.

The reviewer is a performing artist and cultural activist. She tweets @tehrikeniswan

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, June 18th, 2023