This Must Be the Place

This Must Be the Place (2016) by Irish writer Maggie O’Farrell is a realist novel that follows Daniel Sullivan and his reclusive ex-movie-star wife, Claudette Wells, as they navigate parenthood, marriage, and their complex pasts. The novel is O’Farrell’s seventh and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award in 2017. O’Farrell’s other novels include The Hand That First Held Mine (2009) and The Marriage Portrait (2022). In This Must Be the Place, the author draws on her own experience of having a stammer to develop Ari’s characterization and Daniel’s understanding of language, and her experience as a journalist aids in her vivid descriptions of South America and Asia in the novel. The primary conflicts in the novel revolve around The Isolating Effect of Secrets, The Power of Language, and The Dissociating Nature of Trauma.

The guide refers to the 2017 First Vintage Books paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss alcohol addiction, gun violence, abortion, eating disorders, death, grief, and trauma.

Plot Summary

The novel opens in 2010 in Donegal, Ireland, as Daniel stands in the back garden of the house that he shares with his wife, Claudette. After Claudette chases off a potential intruder or paparazzo with her shotgun, they travel the long driveway to the main road to get Daniel to the train. While they drive, Daniel hears an interview with his late girlfriend, Nicola Janks, on the radio, which unearths a decades-old secret in Daniel’s life. After discovering that Nicola died the year he last saw her, he feels compelled to visit his friend Todd, who will be able to tell Daniel whether Nicola’s death is Daniel’s fault.

Daniel flies to America, visiting his estranged children in California before going to see his sisters and father in New York. He has coffee with his children Niall and Phoebe, explaining to them that he fought constantly for visitation and contact with them, but their mother wouldn’t allow it. After re-establishing his relationship with his children, Daniel calls Claudette and asks for her permission to see Todd in Sussex. Claudette reluctantly agrees, and Daniel flies to New York for his father’s birthday.

Interspersed with Daniel’s story are chapters set in the early 1990s that focus on Claudette experiencing burnout from fame, faking her death, and hiding from the public eye in Donegal. Before becoming an actress, she met Swedish director Timou Lindstrom, and he convinced her to be in one of his movies. They had an affair, which led to a serious romantic and professional relationship. After their son, Ari, was born, Timou was repeatedly unfaithful to Claudette. Fed up with his cheating, one day she took Ari and left in the early morning on Timou’s family’s yacht. The media believed that she might be dead, but instead, she was hidden in Donegal in a house in her brother’s name. During the first few years of her seclusion, she met Daniel soon after his divorce from Niall and Phoebe’s mother. He met Ari first on the side of the road and was patient with the boy’s stammer. Claudette asked him to stay a bit longer and help Ari, which led to her marrying Daniel and the births of Marithe and Calvin.

In the present day, Daniel travels to Sussex and discovers that Nicola died several months after Daniel last saw her due to complications from an eating disorder. Todd confesses that he was so upset that Daniel never returned that he never gave Nicola the letter Daniel sent. Daniel goes home to Donegal and discovers that Claudette and their children aren’t there. Daniel worries that Claudette has disappeared but realizes that she likely went to Paris to stay with her mother. He follows her and explains everything about Nicola.

Nicola and Daniel had a serious relationship when he was in college in England. She was older and an established professor, so when she became pregnant, she decided to get an abortion. Neither she nor Daniel wanted the abortion, and the trauma of that experience resulted in Daniel sleeping with another woman and Nicola falling back into an eating disorder that she had treated earlier in her life. Nicola and Daniel saw each other for the last time at a wedding before he went home because his mother was dying. Along with Todd, they used drugs that night. The next day, Daniel and Todd woke up in the woods to find Nicola lying on the ground, possibly dead. Although she died later, and the incident was not directly Daniel’s fault, he blames himself for the psychological pain that she experienced that led to the resurgence of her eating disorder.

Claudette forgives Daniel for hiding this part of his past from her initially, but his infidelity to Nicola bothers her. They separate, and Daniel moves to London. When Daniel’s daughter Phoebe is killed by a gunman in a convenience store robbery, Daniel loses himself in alcohol addiction and grief. Eventually, Niall and Claudette work together to convince Daniel to get help. With medication and Alcoholics Anonymous, he learns to control his addiction. He moves in with Niall, and they travel together to South America, where they meet Rosalind, an older woman, who convinces Daniel to try to get Claudette back.

After that trip, Ari arranges for Daniel to surprise Claudette and the children in Donegal. After proving that he has gained control of his demons, he convinces Claudette that they can try again.