An excellent coming-of-age novel from Edna O'Brien

The Country Girls (1960) is the first volume of Edna O'Brien's trilogy, itself called The Country Girls, about a coming-of-age in Ireland in what looks to be the 1940s and 50s. It's an accessible and relatively short novel, which I belief was considered scandalous in its time - though definitely not so by whatever standards remain today. This novel, O'Brien's first, has the feeling of a memoir, although EO'B makes no such direct claims - and in fact writing it as a novel gives her some freedom of movement that writin a memoir would deny her. EO'B is today in her 80s and still writing regularly, including a recent novel for which she traveled to Africa to do first-hand research on the women in Nigeria captured into slavery. Good for her! As to Country Girls, it follows closely the life of a woman, Caithleen Brady, from about age 14 to 18. She lives in a small, rural town in Ireland near Limerick, and at the see she's in a family struggling w/ poverty, mainly because of her father's severe alcoholism. Her mother dies in a drowning accident, which is never completely explained (her body never recovered), and her father loses most of the family property through his drinking and gambling. Caithleen goes off to a convent school (on scholarship) w/ her best friend, the wealthier, more sophisticated, and more rebellious friend, Baba. Over the course of time, Caithleen attracts the attention of a wealthy married man in the town referred to always as The Gentleman, or Mr. Gentleman (EO'B does give his name, which is French and apparently hard for the Irish to pronounce). This relationship lies at the heart of the novel; he's a horrible man, flirting with a teenage girl and luring her into a sexual relationship (which EO'B treats lightly and with indirection - amazing that this was considered scandalous not all that long ago). Typical of a predator's behavior, he latches on to the most vulnerable of girls - the one w/out a family (a father in particular) to protect her in any way. Over time, the two "country girls" manage to get themselves kicked out of the convent school, which they hate, and they move to Dublin, where Baba takes up w/ a married man (Caithleen is repulsed by the married man w/ whom Baba tries to set her up) and there Mr Gentleman returns to Caithleen's life; they make plans to run away together, to somewhere in Europe, but as all readers can figure out, this plan will go nowhere and Caithleen will be left humiliated and in despair. Her story will continue in volume two, The Lonely Girl.