Irish fiction has emerged with a new genre of relatability that Catherine Prasifka adopts in her debut novel None of This is Serious. The narrative follows the protagonist, Sophie, as she tries to find her feet after leaving the comfort of college. The reader is immediately greeted with an alienist purple crack splitting the sky in half and accompanies Sophie through the most important segment of her life. Prasifka’s novel engulfs the reader with the protagonist’s vulnerability through her portrayal of what life is currently like for young Irish people. None of This is Serious touches on the many anxieties college students face and sheds light on the impact and implications of social media, uncertainty and relationships.
Catherine Prasifka, a Trinity graduate, discusses how her college experience contributed to the novel’s creation in conversation with The University Times. She explains, “college is interesting. Everything in college is stable, you see the same people most days, and you’re on a schedule. You’re a student; you’re not a full-fledged adult in the real world yet. So once that ends, well, what’s happening? There’s no more road map you can follow”.
We see this idea projected in the novel as Sophie struggles to conform to the instability that accompanies adult life. She can’t seem to find a job and constantly worries about her eligibility to get a house with the current housing crisis. As Sophie bluntly puts it: “Dublin’s not a city where people can comfortably exist.” Throughout the novel, the reader experiences Sophie’s existential crisis along with her. Her universal fear of uncertainty, being lost and panicked while trying to navigate her twenties is something that the Irish young adult reader can sympathise with.
The irony of the book’s title, None of This is Serious, lies in the fact that everything really is serious for Sophie. A large purple-hued crack holds the underlying theme that no one can ever be certain of anything. According to Prasifka, “the crack represents global anxiety and global instability, and Sophie deals with a lot of personal instability”. She continues, “I think the way we interact with global anxiety is very personal… Whatever is going on in the world, we interact with it in a tiny, tiny capacity”. With social media a central theme of the novel, Prasifka’s use of fantastical elements accurately projects and actualises the anxieties young people face.
She also places a strong emphasis on representing a young Irish person’s life authentically. She explains, “something that annoyed me was the portrayal of young people not just in fiction but in movies, because they are all written by 50-year-olds and played by 30-year-olds.” Consequently, the novel distinguishes itself in rejecting generalisations for places very familiar to the Irish reader. Familiar Irish words are also used, such as “The Pale” and mentions of the famine. These bring an authentic outlook to how young Irish students recognise their heritage. Prasifka puts it like this: ‘‘if I have to know what a quarterback is, then why am I shying away from putting the word Taoiseach in?”
Catherine Prasifka has created a compelling story surrounding the anxieties young people face in Ireland. “We’re very lucky this type of literature is popular in Ireland right now, and it’s coming out of Ireland”, she says. None of This is Serious is an impressive debut novel and a highly-recommended read. When asked about a possible sequel, Prasifka answers, ‘‘I’m working on another book. It’s not a sequel, but it shares a lot of similar themes because that’s what I’m interested in. I would return to the story later. There’s more to be said, but I just don’t know how to say it. Yet.”
