Latest news with #MaryAnnHealy
New York Times
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Prep School Predator Haunts Joyce Carol Oates's New Novel
FOX, by Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates's impressive and unsettling new novel, 'Fox,' concerns the far-reaching damage unleashed by a self-serving sociopath. Francis Harlan Fox, a predatory English teacher at an elite boarding school in southern New Jersey, uses his authority to sexually abuse his adolescent female students, and manipulates everyone around him — his few friends, parents, the school headmistress, the legal system — to create cover. His galactic indifference to other people's suffering is horrifying yet remarkably engrossing. When an unidentified corpse, torn apart by animals, is discovered in Fox's car at the bottom of a ravine, the mystery provides a narrative throughline that Oates expertly uses to toggle back and forth between the past and present. It won't be long before most readers will find themselves hoping that the unlucky party is Fox, and even wish that he could have died more than once. 'Lolita' casts a long shadow over this book. Fox's office neighbor is named Quilty, and Fox himself, protesting too much, is an outspoken hater of Nabokov's novel. The attention given to the perspectives of Fox's victims can be seen as a rejoinder to Humbert Humbert's narrative monopoly in 'Lolita.' One of these victims, Mary Ann Healy, is a scholarship student with a rough family life, and the portrait that Oates draws of her is particularly affecting. After entering puberty at an early age, Mary Ann finds herself bewilderingly and crushingly ostracized by male relatives, bullied by schoolmates and admonished by her fearful mother. 'Freak! Freaky! — Dirty girl,' she's told. 'In dreams as in actual life she heard these words which were sometimes taunts, sometimes accusations, sometimes uttered in vehement disgust but sometimes, which frightened most, in a kind of reluctant and resentful awe.' She is exactly the sort of student who desperately needs a safe, nurturing influence. Instead, she gets Mr. Fox. Mary Ann becomes conspicuously infatuated with him, but Fox, seeing her more as a threat to his cover than potential quarry, shuns her and sends her spiraling out of school and out of town altogether. Hauntingly, the novel does not resolve her fate. Oates is (and I write this as a fan) not known for her moderation, so her restraint here is notable. She leaves it to the reader's imagination to consider Mary Ann's future, though it's hard to be optimistic about her chances. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Irish Times
31-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Biochemist on special purpose contract with Children's Health Ireland loses unfair dismissal claim
A biochemist who was employed for 19 months at Children's Health Ireland (CHI) , and was accused of seeking to leverage a grievance procedure to obtain a full-time job, has lost her claim for unfair dismissal. Representing herself at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), Mary Ann Healy said she believed her complaint against her line manager prompted her dismissal. She said she suffered from a lot of anxiety due to the handling of her complaint in which she alleged she was humiliated by the manager. . A process of mediation was established between the two employees in an attempt to resolve the issue, but this was unsuccessful. The complaint was not upheld after an internal review process. READ MORE Ms Healy appealed, but her employment at CHI had finished by the time the appeal was considered. It was rejected on that basis. Ms Healy told WRC adjudication officer Valerie Murtagh she did not believe the specified purpose contract she had been offered was genuine. She said the purpose was supposed to be providing cover for an employee seconded to another role but she had never been told who that person was. She said the recruitment process was arduous and suggested the pre-employment checks were so demanding that the experience had 'all the hallmarks' of being geared towards a permanent contract. Instead, on June 17th, 2024, about 18 months into working with the organisation, she received a message from the HR department at CHI saying the purpose of her 'specified purpose contract' has 'come to an end'. She was given four weeks' notice. Ms Healy said it was only when she was told her contract had ceased that she was informed she had been backfilling for someone who was returning. Ms Healy, who was herself the subject of a complaint by an agency worker who provided some of her training, said she believed she was dismissed because of her complaint, adding that CHI sought to avoid acknowledging this by claiming her contract was up. In its evidence to the commission, CHI, represented by Ibec, said Ms Healy was provided with a specified purpose contract. CHI's lawyers submitted that Ms Healy wanted an apology from her manager in front of her colleagues, a permanent contract and a pay increase to address her complaint. In a decision in the case, Ms Murtagh said she was satisfied documentation provided by CHI established that another employee, whose name was not published, had returned to the post immediately after Ms Healy departed the role. Based on this and other documentation supplied, she found the claim of unfair dismissal was not well-founded. She similarly rejected claims made under the Organisation of Working Time Act and the Protection of employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003.
