51 pages • 1 hour read
Patrick MccabeBreakfast on Pluto
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“I Was a High-Class Escort Girl”-Chapter 14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“I Was a High-Class Escort Girl” Summary
Former prostitute Old Mother Riley imagines the reactions of the young men in the Irish counties of Sligo, Leitrim, and Roscommon who now ridicule her if she invited them over and shared stories of her past: She was once Patrick Braden, “sweetness pussy kit-kit” (2), lover of many masculine men.
“A Word of Advice from Dr Terence” Summary
Braden shares that a man named Terence persuaded her to write about her life, calling her “a scribe.” Terence especially liked the parts about “Whiskers,” which is the name Braden uses for her foster mother. She calls the manuscript The Life and Times of Patrick Braden. Braden adds that Dr. Terence vanished suddenly, which hurt Braden deeply.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Merry Christmas, Mrs Whiskers”
Chapter 1 begins The Life and Times of Patrick Braden. On a beautiful Christmas morning, Father Bernard McIvor prepares for Mass. He no longer believes in Christmas, ever since the day in 1955 when he had sex with a beautiful girl. When she became pregnant, he arranged for her to leave Ireland for London to avoid scandal. He is the unacknowledged father of Patrick Braden. Braden grows up in poverty with his alcoholic, foul-mouthed foster mother, Whiskers, and six half-siblings, all from different fathers, an “ALL-IRELAND FUNCTIONAL FAMILY OF THE CENTURY” (7).
Chapter 2 Summary: “Patrick Braden, Aged 13-The Trouble Begins in Earnest!”
In the Irish town of Tyreelin, Peepers Egan, the English teacher, encourages Braden to write creatively. But Braden has learned about his father’s identity and acts out. The boy’s writings—like “Father Stalk Sticks It In” (8)—shock Egan. The teacher visits “Hairy Ma,” Braden’s foster mother, in an effort to persuade Braden to behave. The boy cheerfully refuses.
Chapter 3 Summary: “In Flagrante Delicto, 7.03 p.m., Sept 13, 1968”
Home alone, Braden puts on his foster-sister’s dress and Whiskers’s lipstick and pretends to dance with a famous actor to the song “Son of a Preacher Man”—“what else, darlings!” (10)—when Caroline and Ma return home and discover him. His foster mother slaps him and breaks down in tears.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Mrs O’ Hare’s Smalls”
Braden promises never to do it again, but soon he steals the underwear of the neighbor, Mrs. O’Hare, off the clothesline. She spies him doing it and causes a scene. After Mrs. O’Hare’s reaction, everyone learns about Braden’s secret, and the townspeople start calling him names. Braden notes that he is not interested in sex, only in a wealthy man taking care of him. Braden imagines his foster mother begging him to let her into his rooms during a rainstorm, but he refuses her.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Welcome to Juke Box Jury!”
Braden has two close friends, Irwin and Charlie. Charlie is a girl, but she wants to be their leader. Charlie has comics and a battery-operated record player, and in their hut they organize “international modelling shows” (13). Irwin sometimes minds Braden’s use of women’s clothes and perfume, but they play war to keep him happy, especially in 1966 during the 50-year anniversary of the 1916 rising of the Irish against the English.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Most Popular Adolescent Boy”
Life is not easy for Braden and his friends in their small town, especially with the political turmoil and terrorist attacks between Ireland and the UK. Braden and Charlie plan to leave Tyreelin as soon as possible.
Chapter 7 Summary: “A Real Soldier and a Work of Art Delivered”
While Irwin is determined to become a soldier, Braden worries about his own war against small minds and his father, to whom Braden sends one of his sexual stories.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Breakfast is Served”
In Braden’s historical reimagining, Father Bernard has hired a new housekeeper, as his old one injured herself. The girl is young and attractive but attempts to hide it from the “randy” priest. However, this does not fool him, and he rapes the shocked girl as she serves him breakfast. Braden connects the story ironically with the verses of a song, “Breakfast on Pluto,” which speaks of traveling in spirit.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Ladies and Gentlemen—Mr Dummy Teat!”
At 16, Braden leaves the “Rat Trap Mansions,” which is what he calls his foster home. As Braden is hitching a ride, his married lover arrives in his Mercedes. The man is a politician, double dealing imported weapons for the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and UDA (Ulster Defense Association), which ultimately gets him killed in a bomb explosion. Braden likes him because he is clean and gives him money, even setting him up in a cottage where the man’s late mother used to live. Mr. Dummy Teat, as Braden calls him, misses his mother and often sucks Braden’s thumb, feeling both sexual and emotional pleasure. Braden wishes he could be “his girl into perpetuity” (29).
Chapter 10 Summary: “A Dublin Interlude”
Braden is angry at Dummy for calling him a “brasser” (an Irish slur for prostitute) but decides to go to Dublin with Charlie to spend the money Dummy gave him. He buys women’s clothes because he wishes he were a girl, and his outfits cause a scandal. In Dublin, they meet Irwin, who is protesting internment. Braden shows very little interest in what is happening between Ireland and its southern neighbor, Northern Ireland. Braden learns that Charlie and Irwin are together when he sees them suddenly kissing. That evening, they hear that 13 people have been killed in Derry, but Braden still dreams about clothes and makeup.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Hysterical Jokes and Greeting Visitors in a Skyblue Negligee!”
Braden imagines being a woman and giving birth to 10 children who would all gather at her deathbed, professing their love. Braden believes such a life would be impossible with Dummy, whose wife attacks him one day in front of a crowd. Braden understands her behavior, thinking he would do the same in her position, and this is the reason he decides to not go to Dummy’s funeral. (He reveals the man’s true name to be Eamon Faircroft). People tell him dark jokes about Dummy’s death in an explosion, and even though Braden does not react, he is hurt.
One evening, members of the IRA show up at Braden’s cottage and find him wearing “only a hairnet and skyblue negligee” (39). They search the place and leave, having found nothing. Braden decides to leave the area for good, especially after the death of Laurence Feely.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Celebrity Squares”
Laurence, who has Down’s syndrome, loves watching the game show Celebrity Squares. One day during the show, two men enter his house and, after finding out he is Catholic, rape his mother and murder him by strangling him with his rosary.
Chapter 13 Summary: “A Girl Who Knows She’s Loved!”
Braden has an admirer in the shy Jojo Finn, who tries to send an anonymous letter professing his love. One night, Braden goes to Cavan with Charlie and Irwin to hear the band Plattermen, where a group of bikers attacks him for wearing feminine clothes. Jojo saves him from a beating by scaring off the men, and Braden rushes into the night to find him. Braden holds his hand and gently bites his earlobe before leaving to find Charlie and Irwin.
Chapter 14 Summary: “A Head on Him Like Barney Gillis’s Cockerel”
Braden decides to leave town several months after Eamon’s death. Workmen throw him out of the cottage, and he spends his last few days in Tyreelin with Charlie and her family, watching David Bowie on TV, which scandalizes Charlie’s father. As Braden says goodbye to Charlie, they kiss and caress each other: “with her it was so close to exultation” (47).
“I Was a High-Class Escort Girl”-Chapter 14 Analysis
At the outset of the novel, McCabe introduces the concept of defamiliarization, a term first introduced in theoretical works on literature by Russian formalists to indicate rendering something ordinary strange and unusual. Defamiliarization is present on two levels: linguistic and thematic. The way the protagonist and narrator, Patrick Braden, utilizes language creates an eccentric world of his own imagination, a world so uniquely personal that the words used to describe it must be peculiar as well. This puts the reader in the midst of Braden’s world and allows them to experience it from this unique perspective. McCabe further defamiliarizes the reader by projecting events that seem outlandish and semi-fantastic, which further serve the purpose of blurring the boundary between the real and the imagined, in keeping with Braden’s character.
Furthermore, McCabe utilizes the technique of a “book within a book” embedded narrative to distance his authorial voice from Braden’s. This creates an illusion of heightened reality concerning Braden’s adventures and plants the idea of a lack of authorial mediation in narrating Braden’s life. Thus, readers can enter and participate more fully in Braden’s worldview. By utilizing Braden’s narration, McCabe depicts the formative years of Braden’s life with gritty realism that captures both his experience and worldview. Braden’s unique perception of the major events surrounding his conception and early life is filtered through his need to create a world which Braden can fill with beauty and transitory excitements.
McCabe underscores Irish poverty during the 1950s and 1960s and the constant threat of religion-based violence between the Irish and the English. Ireland is a predominantly Catholic country; however, most Protestants have historically inhabited the northern part of the island. Great Britain used this fact to annex Northern Ireland to the United Kingdom, thereby separating it from Ireland proper. The single geographic region now represents two different countries, and the tensions run high between Irish Catholics, who wish to unify the region, and Protestants, who desire to remain part of the United Kingdom. This led to the Northern Ireland conflict, or the Troubles, a violent ethno-nationalist clash that affected Ireland from the 1960s through 1990s. This historical context will form one of the major themes of the novel.
While international conflict serves as the background for the narrative, it is decidedly distinct from Braden’s personal experience. From childhood, Braden inhabits a world of his own. He dresses in women’s clothes as a child, and as a young adult, he develops a desire to have the protection of a strong, masculine man. In Braden’s mind, this does not correlate specifically to sexual feelings, but rather to the idea of a duality of gender within Braden. At times, Braden refers to himself as a man, and at others, especially in fantasies, she sees herself only as a woman.
Two incidents frame Braden’s early psychological response to life: His father is a priest who refuses to acknowledge Braden’s existence, and he grows up in the unloving, bleak, poverty-stricken environment of the “Rat Trap Mansions.” This is why Braden decides to leave at the first opportunity and becomes the lover of a duplicitous politician. During the events that follow, Braden continues to develop his fantasy life, existing not on Earth but, symbolically, on Pluto. The song “Breakfast on Pluto” brings together Braden’s hatred for his father (he rapes Braden’s mother as she serves him breakfast) and Braden’s desire to exist on a plane that bears no resemblance to his harsh reality.
In this initial segment of the novel, McCabe introduces the reader to several recurring themes and devices that will come to define the narrative and Braden. For example, Braden’s dreams of makeup and dresses stand in stark contrast to the murder of 13 people in Derry. His lack of reaction to the carnage of political turmoil and his decision to turn inward toward more flippant pursuits exemplify his reaction to all the trauma that will affect him. Rather than address these traumas, which are outside of his control, Braden concocts a fantasy which is entirely in his control and is delightfully flippant, in contrast to the darkness of reality. Additionally, we see in Braden’s relationship with Dummy a template for all of Braden’s relationships. Because he stands proudly outside of the norms of Irish (and British) society, those who also feel atypical seek him out and use him as a vessel for their own deviancy (often sexual) and pleasure. Braden, who perpetually craves the support and affection his life lacked as a child, willfully inhabits the form his lovers or friends desire.
