48 pages • 1 hour read
Donal RyanThe Queen of Dirt Island
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 61-90Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 61-65 Summary
Pearl is now learning how to walk. Saoirse wonders what Honey’s life was like in London before she moved to Ireland. Honey tells Saoirse that she lived a life of drama, which she never wants to be involved in again. Saoirse looks at Honey and wishes that she was more like her.
Pearl takes her first steps, and Saoirse wonders if she should have stayed in school to take her exams. However, she remembers how the nuns at school used to torment the students, including Breedie, and feels content with her current life.
Sometimes, Josh and Honey go on trips alone. They invite Saoirse, but she declines, reasoning that she doesn’t want to impose on them. One night, Josh hits a man in a pub in Nenagh who is mistreating Honey. Saoirse feels pleased by their subsequent tension and fighting and doesn’t understand why. Honey and Saoirse talk to each other about books frequently. Josh tells the two of them that he didn’t like The Catcher in the Rye, and while he and Honey argue about it, Saoirse feels excluded because of her relative lack of education compared to them.
Saoirse’s mother starts to go on dates. When she leaves for a date, Nana, Pearl, and Saoirse spend time together. Later that night, Saoirse’s mother returns suddenly, having ended the date early, and she and Nana laugh about men’s strange personalities.
Chapters 66-70 Summary
Josh has decided to write a novel, and Saoirse notices him talking to Honey about its characters as if they are real people. Without Pearl, Saoirse feels childish around Josh and Honey, and she feels a twinge of sadness watching them interact happily.
Rumors abound that Paudie might be released from prison again. Nana, who visits Paudie monthly, describes how he’s changed since going to prison, including that he now speaks Irish instead of English. However, one day, the police officer, Jim Gildea, visits the house to tell them that Paudie has died in his sleep in prison.
Saoirse looks at Paudie’s body during his funeral and thinks of how little the corpse reminds her of when Paudie was living. A group of men in black berets and sunglasses carry his coffin to the grave, shouting in Irish as he’s lowered in. As Saoirse and her mother leave, they run into her uncle Richard, who says he’s there to pay his respects. Saoirse’s mother responds that Richard will never get the land that she inherited.
After Paudie’s death, Nana becomes thin and sour, but she doesn’t seem to be falling ill as Saoirse and her mother have worried. Honey, now a tutor at a local college, complains to Saoirse that Josh is driving himself to unhappiness over his unfinished novel. Honey admits that she’s going to leave Josh for a while and asks Saoirse to take care of him while she is gone. After Honey leaves, the family doesn’t hear from Josh for weeks. Saoirse doesn’t understand how to care for Josh in the manner that Honey requested of her. As Saoirse is thinking about it, Nana suffers a stroke in her armchair.
Chapters 71-75 Summary
At the hospital, Saoirse’s mother becomes frustrated with Nana, who is complaining constantly and telling the same stories repeatedly. Nana’s left side is paralyzed from the stroke, and she receives twice-weekly physical therapy. Josh makes sure to spend time with Nana in the evenings. Saoirse notices that without Honey, Josh doesn’t speak to her, and she wonders if he doesn’t find her interesting. Nana returns home, needing care from Saoirse and her mother to function. Josh comes over frequently and spends a lot of time with Pearl, and Saoirse wonders what his motivations are.
One day, Nana tells Saoirse that Josh is “stuck on her” (147). Saoirse pretends to not understand what Nana is talking about, but Nana mocks her lightly, wondering aloud whether Josh really wants to visit an old woman every second night. When Saoirse says that they’re only friends, Nana encourages her to pursue him. Saoirse is unable to get Nana’s words out of her head, but she knows that she is incapable of making the first move with Josh. She also thinks about Honey, unwilling to betray her but also angry that she hasn’t reached out at all since she left. Saoirse realizes that she does love Josh, and it sours her memories of Honey out of retrospective jealousy. Josh and Saoirse begin a secret relationship after Josh kisses her one evening during a walk. Despite her nervousness, she decides to have sex with him two weeks after they begin their affair.
Chapters 76-80 Summary
Saoirse wonders what Josh’s life with Honey was like, even though he never mentions her. She worries that she doesn’t compare to Honey for Josh, and she feels inferior. One day, Josh shows Saoirse his unfinished novel and begins to cry. After making love, Josh and Saoirse lay in bed, and Josh says that he feels the presence of the devil around him. He reads to her from his novel and tells her that the devil spoke the words to him. Then, Josh asks Saoirse if she’s scared of what he said, and with a sinking feeling, Saoirse realizes that she is.
Despite the strange things that Josh says, Saoirse feels that he is a beautiful and gentle person. Saoirse realizes that she thinks about Josh constantly and that she’s falling in love with him. Honey sends her a letter describing her current film project. Saoirse hopes that she’ll bless her and Josh’s relationship but knows that this is unlikely. One day, in bed, Josh wonders aloud whether they’re both dead and have gone to Hell. Saoirse throws her shoe at him out of anger and tells him that he is not actually nice but is merely faking it. She feels bad for the comment, and as they lay together, Josh says, “This is Heaven” (160).
One night near Christmas, Doreen calls Saoirse and asks her to visit her and Chris the following day. When she arrives, Pearl goes to play with the dog, and Saoirse feels uncomfortable because Doreen has not offered her any food or drink or made her feel welcome. Doreen confronts Saoirse, revealing that she saw her and Josh having sex the other day by the shore of the lake while Pearl slept. Doreen then accuses Saoirse of being a bad mother who doesn’t deserve her child.
Chapters 81-85 Summary
Saoirse bursts into tears in shock at Doreen’s anger. Doreen suddenly reverses and begins to desperately apologize to Saoirse for what she said, asking her to not tell Chris, who’d be angry if he knew. Doreen admits to Saoirse that she feels lonely and neglected by the family, who all spend more time with Saoirse than her. When Chris comes in from the fields, Doreen pretends that nothing happened and that they’ve been having a normal conversation. Doreen walks Saoirse and Pearl home and asks her to visit again, promising to never speak to her as she did before. Saoirse feels sad for Doreen, but also feels resentful over what she said.
Doreen starts to call the house a few times per week to arrange to sit with Nana to Nana’s consternation. When Doreen begins to bring Nana juicy gossip from town, she becomes more comfortable with her. Doreen also becomes closer to Pearl, who one day gifts her a chain of daisies for a makeshift crown.
Twice, Eileen tries to see her father, who abandoned her when she revealed her pregnancy with Saoirse. Saoirse feels resentful over this because she knows the only way that Eileen’s father will forgive her is if she apologizes to him for Saoirse’s existence. The first time Eileen tries to visit, she’s blocked by her brother, Richard. She visits successfully the second time, but her father is so sick that he doesn’t recognize her. A few days later, Saoirse’s grandfather dies. Nana and Saoirse treat Eileen carefully because she was never able to achieve her father’s forgiveness, but she isn’t outwardly emotional. Eileen insists on going to the funeral alone, and when she returns, she tells Saoirse that things are going to get messy.
Chapters 86-90 Summary
Around a week later, Saoirse and Josh go to visit one of his old friends, who Saoirse thinks is handsome and interesting. When they get back home, they find “there her mother, being strangled to death” by Richard (174). Her mother’s face is purple, and she’s covered in injuries and bruises. Josh tackles Richard off of Saoirse’s mother, and Saoirse’s mother sits up, gurgling blood. Josh stands toe to toe with Richard, who ends up fleeing. He came to the house bearing a contract that he wanted Saoirse’s mother to sign, relinquishing her rights to the land she inherited, and he attacked her when she refused. Saoirse’s mother says that they used to fight all the time as kids.
Pearl, who has a close relationship with Doreen, heads up to her farmhouse for a day trip. Saoirse and Josh enjoy their day off while Saoirse’s mother takes Nana into town. However, Pearl doesn’t return at the agreed time, and when Saoirse heads up to the farmhouse to investigate, she finds the house empty and the three family members gone. Saoirse wonders why the house is empty and Chris isn’t answering his phone since his car is still parked near the house. Saoirse, trying not to panic, receives a call from Chris, who claims that Doreen left with Pearl for a walk hours before and hasn’t yet returned. They find Doreen holding a sleeping Pearl by the edge of a very deep pool of water.
Chapters 61-90 Analysis
Competing notions of jealousy form a core component of the third section of The Queen of Dirt Island. Following the birth of Pearl, Saoirse’s life contracts. Instead of going out and partying like she used to do with Breedie, Saoirse now stays home with her family, taking care of her daughter. This new way of being allows new, closer friends to enter her closed group, namely Josh and Honey, who are returning to the town from a time in England. To Saoirse, Honey is the embodiment of all the aspects of life that she feels like she was denied. Honey is cosmopolitan, educated, compassionate, and creative, and Saoirse feels as if Honey’s life reflects her own desires; to Saoirse’s mind, “Honey seemed […] to exist in a kind of a haze of unreasonable happiness. Everything about this tiny triangle of world […] seemed to interest and delight her” (118). Saoirse explicitly wishes that she could enjoy life this way. Though she doesn’t express much desire toward Josh early on, when Honey leaves, Saoirse’s pursuit of Josh is an attempt to fit herself into the life that Honey has modeled for her. Saoirse desires to become someone like Honey—artistic, traveled, and respected—and yet she is held back from this by the circumstances of her life so far. Pearl, to whom the opportunities her mother was denied are fully extended, represents the culmination of Saoirse’s desire, illustrating the theme of The Bonds of Family.
Richard also demonstrates this consistent motif of jealousy. For years, Richard has denigrated Eileen following her rejection by her parents; Richard’s verbal abuse of Saoirse is the reason that Eileen and Saoirse don’t return to Dirt Island. However, when Eileen receives a plot of land that Richard desires in her father’s will, Richard can’t handle it. Although Eileen has been rejected by her family for decades, Richard feels that the land she inherited was his by right, and his frustration leads to intense physical violence. Richard’s violent reaction to jealousy represents contrasts with Saoirse’s experience of jealousy. While Saoirse’s jealousy stems from desiring the life that others lead without blame or anger, Richard’s jealousy is caught up in his ego, and this entitlement leads to a further disintegration of his family unit. Saoirse, therefore, is able to maintain a loving and close relationship with Honey, using her as a role model without entitlement, while Richard becomes further alienated from the family he’d already distanced himself from.
Along with Richard, Doreen becomes caught up in a form of destructive jealousy, showing another dimension of The Pitfalls of Relationships. However, while Richard’s reaction to jealousy is outward destruction, Doreen reacts with self-destruction. Her jealousy first manifests in her verbal abuse of Saoirse, in which she upbraids her for having an intimate moment with Josh while Pearl sat at the edge of a lake. The image of lakes and pools of water recurs throughout the novel, first representing freedom and love, in the form of Saoirse and Josh’s romance, and then showing the depths of sadness, in the form of Doreen’s fate. Following the argument, Doreen explains her jealousy of Saoirse in terms of her family connections: unlike Saoirse, Doreen does not feel particularly close to the rest of the family and desires a child, which she’s been unable to have. Jealousy, in the novel, is relative; Saoirse feels jealous of those who have the open and expansive life she desires, but she takes her family’s love for granted. Doreen, on the other hand, feels jealous of the familial closeness that Saoirse takes for granted. Doreen kidnaps Pearl following a babysitting session and is found later sitting “at the very lip of the black pool that stretche[s], it was said, down to the centre of the earth” (182). Though she seems to be considering Richard’s outward destruction by threatening to take Pearl with her, instead she ends up allowing Chris to take Pearl, and she then drowns herself in the water. In this section, jealousy manifests in three separate and intertwined ways: self-growth, outward destruction, and self-destruction, with Saoirse’s self-growth being the only manifestation of jealousy that also functions as a path to happiness.
