Cecelia Ahern boldly challenges societal norms and explains why it can be good for women to roar

By Joy Watson

16 Jul 2024

Roar urges readers to challenge the status quo and ensure women have better representation in society as they age.

Cecelia Ahern’s Roar is a powerful and thought-provoking exploration of women’s lived experiences at different life stages.

Ahern’s inspiration for the collection of stories came from a meeting with a casting agent in Los Angeles, when she realised that women over the age of 55 were not represented much in television and media.

This realisation sparked a creative journey that spanned five years, resulting in a collection of 30 stories that have been carefully and intricately stitched together.

Ahern is adept at writing a novel every year, but Roar was different from the outset.

“I gathered the stories over five years. Putting them together was a lovely, creative process. They were unique, quirky stories that do not follow the rules. I did not plan to publish them as I thought I might have to compromise and change things for publication. I wanted them to be just as they are.

“It was just my thing on the side”

“It was just my thing on the side, and I was doing it for me. They started building slowly and I then knew that I wanted to do something with them, I just did not know when. I thought about how as we age as women we get erased, we start to disappear.

“The first story that I wrote was about a woman who slowly disappears. Everyone around her just stops seeing her. Each story in the collection speaks to different moments of women’s lived experiences.”

One of the things that makes Roar special is its ability to speak to a wide range of readers, regardless of age or background. The stories are imaginative enough for everyone to identify with and find meaning in them, making them feel like daily meditations.

Ahern describes it as “a reflection book that you can pop in your handbag”. The stories are impactful in urging readers to question social norms and consider different perspectives.

While she was working on the book, Ahern found that when she talked about the stories with other women, that they had a deep sense of resonance and would share their own experiences of the themes in the book.

“I don’t usually share anything about a book that I am working on, but with this book it was a talking point with friends. When I would tell them about the stories, they would get excited, and they usually had something to say about them that added value to the shape of the story.

“With the story about the woman who disappears, for example, I spoke to women with disabilities and women going through menopause. This was useful to thinking about the diverse ways in which women are not seen.”

A tool for social transformation

Roar serves as a tool for social transformation, challenging readers to think differently about the world around them and the roles women play in society.

The story, The Woman Who Was Kept on the Shelf, for example, is an innovative, thought-provoking contemplation of how as a society we centre the lives of men, and how the informal social norms that inform our day-to-day interactions are restrictive in gender roles.

The story is about a man who builds a special shelf for the woman in his life, because she is worthy of adoration. He places her on the shelf and, initially, it seems like a good place to be. It soon becomes a problem – a big one – because nothing much happens on the shelf.

In the story entitled The Woman Who Was Swallowed Up by the Floor and Who Met Lots of Other Women Down There Too, the reader is taken into the angst of the corporate world and the pressure to succeed.

The story begins with a woman who “knows her stuff” who is giving a presentation to colleagues. At the last minute, the CEO of the company decides to join, ratcheting up the drive to impress.

But alas, the woman accidentally farts, at which point the earth opens and swallows her. She finds that the place below the surface of the earth is filled with women who are feeling ashamed, including the woman who called her husband by the wrong name on her wedding day, the woman whose skirt was tucked into her underwear and the woman whose boob was accidentally hanging out.

What works particularly well is Ahern’s technique of turning the tables and getting us to see things through the lens of another’s perspective.

In The Woman Who Guarded Gonads, a man appears before a tribunal of three women to ask for permission to have a vasectomy. Vasectomies are illegal and special permission is required. The only circumstances under which it is allowed is if the man is suicidal or if he finds himself in a situation where his sperm can kill him (one of the many hilarious and ironic moments in the book).

The story is particularly witty, but it is also a powerful way of questioning the control of women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

Ahern explains: “I think that everything I do is from a feminist perspective, but with this book, because the stories are short, it is more of a punch in the gut – it works well to make people sit up and take notice.

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“The story about a man having to ask women for permission to have a vasectomy is a reflection on bodily autonomy. As an author, I am always trying to look at things in diverse ways. This story is about getting us to look at something through the perspective of another.”

Roar is a labour of love, a passion project that gets us to think about both the difficulties and the joys of being a woman.

Importantly, it reminds us that we have a voice, that we should be seen and heard and that our views matter. And importantly, that there are times when we need to roar.

Ahern is not a particularly loud roarer, but she is a powerful one.

“When we were trying to come up with the title and Roar was suggested as something that would have resonance because of the song I Am Woman by Helen Reddy, I knew that I do not like shouting. There are different ways of roaring and it can be effective even when it is quiet, too. In some ways, my writing is my roar.”

Overall, Roar is a captivating and thought-provoking collection that displays Ahern’s talent for storytelling and her ability to create meaningful and resonant narratives. DM

Roar is also available on Apple TV

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A tool for social transformation