Identity

Throughout the novel, the author uses Joey Mullen’s storyline in order to explore the ways in which the individual’s sense of self might be influenced by her experiences, circumstances, and relationships. Shortly prior to the start of the novel, Joey has “moved back to Bristol” after years spent away from her hometown (9). In Chapter 1, she sits at her late mother’s grave, and tries to assure her mother that she is “finally growing up” (8). Indeed, Joey has convinced herself that marrying Alfie and moving back to Bristol will grant her an organic throughway into conventional, adult stability. However, Joey finds that living with her brother and sister-in-law and working at the “notoriously rough soft-play center in the city” is not offering her the contentment and security for which she hoped (19). “The problem was…well,” says the narrator inhabiting Joey’s consciousness in Chapter 3, “the...