The relationship between mother and daughter is often explored with gusto and honesty in literature, as it is in Man Booker Prize winner Anne Enright’s Actress. Not only does she delve into the traditional complex feelings of admiration, jealously, love, desperation and hope that typifies these relationships, she further complicates these through the lens of celebrity.

Katherine O’Dell was Ireland’s sweetheart – an actress universally recognised but whose star eventually faded when she descended into middle age and madness. Norah is her daughter – a woman who feels herself unexceptional but grows up in the exceptionally complex world of her mother’s circle. Although pains are clearly taken for Norah to grow up in as normal a fashion as possible, she still bears the cross of a mother who her boyfriends either sexualise or are too tongue-tied to meet, and who surrounds her with famous and powerful men – many who long to possess both women – and with the mystery of her unknown and unnamed father never too far in the background.

Many years after Katherine’s death, Norah – a reasonably unsuccessful writer – finally tackles the story her husband felt she should have long ago – her mother’s. Norah traces her earliest years on the stage, her big breaks in Hollywood and the career that somehow slowly came to a standstill after she took time off to have a baby. There are also the unsavoury elements – a connection to the IRA, the experimental theatre, and even a shooting which darkens the final years of Katherine’s life. Amongst it all, Norah both stands in admiration and condemnation of her mother and her choices.

There is an honesty to this book – its portrayal of these women is so raw that one could believe it is actually the biographical search it pretends to be. And at the end, the connection and love between these two women, despite all else, shines through. Actress is heartfelt, moving and finally, unexpectedly tender.

Reviewed by Lauren Cook