Review: Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth

Hindustan Times

03-07-2025

It's a 'tricky age' in Crossmore, Northern Ireland. There's not much to do and what there is to do is pretty mundane. The uneventfulness of life in this part of the world is the backdrop of Brighton-based Chloe Michelle Howarth's debut novel Sunburn. A quiet town in Northern Ireland much like the one that's the setting for Sunburn. (Shutterstock)
Spanning a period from 1989 to 1995, this coming-of-age story of a group of teenagers in their last years of secondary school is also a tale of same-sex love in a traditional society; one where there are consequences if you tread a romantic path that doesn't align with heteronormative expectations. The setting's hyperlocal-ness also signals that the principal characters — Lucy Nolan and Susannah O'Shea — can't escape the reality that their business is everyone's business. 288pp, ₹1230; Verve Books
In a sense, Sunburn is also an exploration of class. While Lucy's family is trying to make ends meet and follows rigid heteropatriarchal rules — men tend to the farm and women look after the home — Susannah's is the exact opposite. Her parents Phil and Catriona are separated and her mother is unhappy. In the eyes of Lucy's mother, the O'Sheas are no good. She understands only one thing: her role in the family, and is determined that Lucy follow her path.
But like all the other girls, Lucy too looks up to the beautiful Susannah, who never had to wear hand-me-downs. Susannah 'knows how to talk to everybody; somehow she knows exactly what everybody wants to hear.' While Lucy is attracted to Susannah, she also finds this desire unruly: 'My fear, shame, and regret are elsewhere; I know them all combined in one sickness when I stare at Susannah, deep and long, and without permission.'
This want, which she finds disgusting, is what drives the story. Lucy can't seem to 'figure out' who she is; the self-awareness that Susannah champions is missing in her. As a result, Lucy does what everyone expects of her and conforms. However, she remains conflicted about what the future holds: whether she'll be with Martin Burke, who loves her unconditionally but whom she considers just a friend, or if she will, one day, summon up the nerve to confess her love to Susannah. By now, the two of them have started writing letters to each other.
Lucy plays this game for a while, oscillating between conforming to accepted norms and listening to herself. Until one day, when she realises that she is at the threshold of the permissibility of homo-sociality. She sees that she could become the subject of one of those rumours that invite ridicule to the family. This happens during a conversation with the other girls in the gang, Eimear reveals that one of the boys, Dennis Jennings, 'was caught with some fella up in the city.' She 'widens her eyes' to suggest the obvious: that he's gay. While the others are trying to suppress this hearsay, Susannah chimes in with 'What's the harm if he's gay?' Lucy definitely knows what's the harm. As a child, she had understood that there were limits to love. She thinks, 'one day people would run out of love for me.'
Still, she hankers for Susannah, who exudes freedom and has a more liberal attitude towards life. But will she be her date to the school farewell ball? Or should she choose Martin, who, for the time, is seeing Rita Hegarty. While Martin is a permanent presence in Lucy's life, she happens to be a welcome distraction in Susannah's life. It's at the latter's home, when Catríona was away, that they became aware of their hunger for each other's bodies.
This is where the novel is at its mesmerising best. The electrifying sentences give shape to the characters' queerness in all its complexity. 'Those first few heartbeats of her leave me ecstatic. At last, I am defined. All my lonely days were not wasted, they led me to this most perfect union, this weaving of our two souls. The parts of me that were once afraid can no longer be found. Perhaps they will come back to terrify me again, but for now, I can't feel them. For now, I allow myself to be wanted by her,' Lucy thinks. But it's clear that, yet again, she is not letting herself be the agent of change in her own life.
Lucy's life does change, though, when one day the inevitable happens and her mother discovers the connection. Now, will she be her mother's daughter or allow herself to be Susannah's lover? Torn between being one Lucy at the cost of the other, she struggles to be her own person. Author Chloe Michelle Howarth (Courtesy https://www.chloemichellehowarth.com/)
The author brilliantly presents Martin as Lucy's raffle ticket out of Crossmore and into Dublin. Howarth uses her characters' motivations as an instrument to create perpetual conflicts that leave the readers wanting more. She also manages to introduce partial independence into Lucy's life. However, the thing with freedom is that it's either there or it isn't. Lucy realises that she can neither be who she was nor be Martin's girl. As a Susannah-shaped void begins to present itself, overwhelming Lucy, she attempts to direct her attention only at Martin. She hopes things will fall in place on their own. Then, life enters her body again when she finds herself in the presence of Geraldine, the niece of the owner of the café where she works. This turn of events energises the novel too.
In this wonderfully crafted debut, Howarth shows how the vocabulary of love evolves for those whose desires don't align with the majority, whose love still dares not speak its name. Sunburn deserves all the accolades that have been coming its way, and prepares readers for the author's latest, Heap Earth Upon It – a historical novel featuring 'sibling rivalry and sapphic obsession'.
Saurabh Sharma is a Delhi-based writer and freelance journalist. They can be found on Instagram/X: @writerly_life.