Review: This Must Be the Place

Name: This Must be the Place
Author: Maggie O'Farrell
First Published: May 2016
Publisher: Tinder Press

My latest read took me on a journey to deepest Ireland via sunny San Francisco, a forest in Scotland, a yacht sashaying across the Swedish seas and a messy London flat. And that list isn't even exhaustive. The snippet of map on the front cover of This Must Be the Place doesn't lie – these characters like to travel.

I was drawn to Maggie O'Farrell after reading an old Guardian article she wrote about the process of writing. While her baby slept, swaddled in a sling, she would take to the keyboard and type until the young babe awoke. Impressive.

This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell, sitting proudly in my armchair

This Must Be the Place pivots around two people. We follow the twists and turns of their lives, both before they meet and afterwards. Daniel is an American linguistics professor. He is kind, loud and flawed. Claudette is a half-French, somewhat reluctant movie star with a stuttering son and a shotgun. When we meet them they are living, together with a handful of children, in a secluded house in rural Ireland at the end of a long track punctuated with security gates.

Things change one day when Daniel hears the voice of someone he used to know through his car radio. He can't help himself – he has to find out what happened to Nicola Janks. He only knew her for a short time twenty years ago, so his newfound mission couldn't possibly upset the present-day apple cart, could it?

I loved following the trails of events in This Must Be the Place, jumping through time zones, globetrotting and witnessing situations through multiple viewpoints – the children, the friends, the lovers. This book is a great example of cause and effect: the life of a character can be altered by an event that happened years ago, in another country, before they were even born. A spooky thought!

Maggie's writing was atmospheric and accessible, and she captures fleeting moments and lingers on them in a way that you don't have time to do in real life. It felt indulgent. I classify this book as one to snuggle up with on the sofa!

This edition is currently on sale in Waterstones if you'd like to add it to your shelf.