Shibby Magee by Carrie Kabak

Whispers of the Story

Imagine that one day your mother leaves and tells you that this time it is forever. Everyone around you, your grandmother, your father, even your twin sister, simply says good riddance.

But why? That question stays with you for decades.

As an adult, Shibby wants nothing more than a family of her own. When she finally finds her mother, the truth she discovers destroys the comforting story she had created in her mind. She had imagined a loving woman who had suffered and regretted leaving her daughters behind. Instead, the truth forces Shibby to rethink everything she believed about family and about her own life.

Review of  Shibby Magee by Carrie Kabak

The author kindly sent me a copy of Shibby Magee in exchange for an honest review. Luckily for both of us, honesty is my default setting.

This is a story about love and loss, but readers should not expect a dramatic or sentimental story similar to a Hallmark film. The novel feels much more real. There are no moments where the main character looks into the distance and second guesses her decisions. Things happen quickly because life moves forward and there are always other problems to deal with.

Shibby continues to love her mother even though she abandoned two daughters and a comfortable life for the excitement of running away with a man. While the rest of the family seems to move on surprisingly fast, Shibby cannot. For years she hopes her mother will return. When it becomes clear that she will not, Shibby simply hopes that one day she might see her again.

Growing Up in the Shadow of Abandonment

The novel is divided into two distinct parts.

The first part follows the girls during their childhood and feels like a long introduction to the world of the story. The pacing is slower and focuses on introducing the characters and the environment in which the twins grow up. Religion plays an important role in Shibby’s early life, although this aspect becomes less important in the second half of the novel. Some scenes feel slightly disconnected from the main story, but they help show how different the two sisters are. At times they seem so different that it feels possible they might drift apart later in life.

During this part of the story we also learn important background information. Shibby’s mother was a Traveller, which created resentment within the family. Irish Travellers, also known as Mincéirs or Pavees, are an indigenous Irish ethnic group with their own heritage, language called Shelta or Cant, and a historically nomadic lifestyle. They have often faced discrimination and exclusion from mainstream Irish society. Relationships between settled Irish families and Travellers are rare.

This tension influences many relationships in the novel. The twins form a lifelong friendship with Kitty, a Traveller girl, and throughout her life Shibby continues to meet members of this community.

At the same time darker events happen around the family. A priest attempts to force himself on Alice, the family housekeeper. Alice may or may not have killed her husband in the past, but she certainly places a curse on the priest before his death. Meanwhile the family bakery begins to lose customers to large chain stores. Benny, the girls’ father, tries desperately to keep the business alive and even starts delivering baked goods himself.

Despite these struggles the family still manages to send the twins to boarding school in the hope of giving them a better future.

When the Past Catches Up

The second half of the novel takes place when the twins are forty five years old and this is where the story gains much more energy.

It becomes clear that their mother’s abandonment affected them in very different ways. Shibby longs for stability, marriage, children and a traditional family. Her sister rejects that idea completely and chooses a life without serious relationships.

Shibby also struggles with unresolved feelings toward her parents. She wants a closer relationship with her father, but she has spent years blaming him for the emptiness she feels. At the same time she has created a comforting story about her mother and imagines a woman who deeply regrets her decision to leave.

Because she desperately wants love and belonging, Shibby repeatedly falls into relationships with toxic men. One man only wants fun. Another becomes her husband, but the marriage collapses almost immediately.

When she finally runs away from him she travels to the place where she believes her mother might be living. After decades of waiting she finally finds her.

The reunion is devastating.

Her mother does not recognise her. She does not admit who she is, but talks like Shibby’s mother is simply an old acquaintance. When the truth finally comes out it is far worse than Shibby imagined. Her mother admits that she wandered from man to man and never felt regret about leaving her daughters. The pregnancy that led to the twins was accidental. When the man responsible rejected her she manipulated Benny into believing he was the father.

This revelation forces Shibby to reconsider everything she believed about her family. Benny, the distant father she quietly blamed for years, knew the truth all along. Yet he still chose to raise the girls as his own. Only then does Shibby begin to see him differently.

The Selfishness of Pain

For most of her life Shibby views the world through the lens of her own pain. She is so focused on the wound created by her mother’s abandonment that she rarely considers what the people around her might be experiencing.

At first it is easy to believe that Shibby is misunderstood by her family. They appear to dismiss her pain too easily. But as the story progresses it becomes clear that she is guilty of the same kind of blindness.

She witnesses events without truly understanding them. When she sees her father attack the priest who assaulted Alice she senses that there is a deeper story behind it but never tries to learn more. She never truly understands her sister’s decision to avoid serious relationships. She also fails to recognise that Benny himself grew up without affection and simply does not know how to show love.

Only in the final chapters, when she is forty five years old, does Shibby finally begin to understand. Benny did everything he could for the girls even though he knew they were not his biological daughters. Alice quietly became the closest thing Shibby had to a mother. The entire family tried to protect her from a harsh world. I will say it again: she is 45. I would expect her to understand some things by now. But she acts like a very young woman with no life experience, that’s why she makes all the bad decisions. 

It takes her almost a lifetime to see it. Her pain had made her blind.

The Family Threads

In the second half of the novel family bonds slowly become stronger.

Benny begins to behave more openly like a father. Alice’s role as a maternal figure becomes clear. After many failed relationships Shibby eventually marries a good man, although accepting real love is difficult after so many years of disappointment.

The grandmother becomes increasingly bitter and eventually dies in tragic circumstances. Whether her death was natural or not remains unclear, and it is suggested that Alice might have finally acted on her threats in order to protect the family.

Meeting her mother finally gives Shibby the closure she needed. She realises that the woman she spent her life longing for was never capable of being a mother. The real maternal presence in her life had always been Alice.

Although the twins continue to see life very differently, their bond remains strong.

Final Thoughts

I must admit that I struggled at times while reading this novel because many Irish words and expressions appear throughout the story, which required some additional research.

However, Shibby Magee by Carrie Kabak feels painfully real. The novel captures something very true about life. Events that deeply shape us often happen while we are too busy dealing with immediate problems to fully process them.

Oddly enough, I felt the most sympathy for Benny. He lives a difficult life. His wife never loved him and eventually left him. He is also gay, which remains a sensitive subject in his environment. At the same time he must deal with his mother’s harsh comments, raise two daughters and try to save the family bakery. All of this happens while he hides who he truly is.

If you are looking for a realistic story about abandonment, family and the long lasting effects of childhood wounds, Shibby Magee is worth reading. The novel also offers an interesting glimpse into Irish society and the Traveller community.

Readers should simply be prepared for a slower first half that eventually leads to a much more emotionally intense second part.

Rating: 7 out of 10 A painfully realistic story about the selfishness of pain and the complicated resilience of family.

Happy reading!