Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

In an author's note at the end of this novel Karen Joy Fowler expresses her feelings of ambiguity about fictionally recreating the life of John Wilkes Booth, one of the most notorious figures in US history. He was famed for being a handsome and talented actor until the age of 26 when he became infamous for assassinating President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theatre on April 15, 1865. Why give more attention to a fanatic and egotist? This was a defining moment in American history which forever reshaped the country so it's only natural to wonder how it came about. Fowler was interested in the way it affected the rest of Booth's family. She's also haunted by Lincoln's warnings about tyrants and mobs in this country and how this still resonates today. The impetus for this novel which recreates the story of the Booth family also presents a conundrum for the reader who will most likely only know of John Wilkes Booth for a single defining action. Therefore, following the story of his life from birth we're naturally attentive to any action which indicates a propensity for mental instability, extreme views or violence. Fowler peppers the text with such signs and we can only warily witness an emboldened John who states at one point: “It's a wonderful thing... to be right in the middle of something so momentous. To feel that you've touched history and history has touched you.” Unlike the author's previous novel “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” which contains a famous twist, there's never any doubt about how “Booth” will end but that makes this story no less gripping.

The thing about significant historical events is that they can come to feel inevitable, but obviously in the present moment we're faced with an infinite number of possibilities. We also cannot know the many repercussions of our actions. Though Fowler describes John as having certain propensities, his family definitely didn't view him as having the potential to be a monster. This novel primarily focuses on the point of view of John's surviving siblings and the dramatic story of their challenging family life leading up to John's murderous action. Their father Junius was a famous Shakespearean actor and a complicated tyrannical larger-than-life figure. On one hand, he was an intelligent artist who respected all life as sacred. On the other, he was bigamist who abandoned his first wife, frequently neglected his family and occasionally drunkenly terrorized his mistress and children. Naturally living under his shadow his children grew to both revere and hate him. It's fascinating reading how they change over time and wrestle with their identities as the offspring of Booth. Crucially, their interactions with John feel like any complicated sibling relationship. There's closeness and distance as well as moments of tenderness and frustration.

In between following the family's development we're also given shorter snippets about Lincoln's personal and political life. This serves as an interesting counterpoint because, just as things could have turned out differently for John, the same is true of Lincoln who was a politically moderate figure in the right place at the right time to become a presidential candidate. Only through his astute reasoning did he decide that the country could not continue and progress while slavery was legal. However, he wasn't certain about whether Whites and African Americans could co-exist in America. Of course, the Emancipation Proclamation was met with a lot of opposition and the issue of slavery embroiled the country in a deadly civil war. But in the novel we see how things could have so easily turned out differently. Additionally the narrative follows the story of an African American family acquainted with the Booths who endeavour over a period of many many years to buy freedom for each of its members. This is only a peripheral strand of the novel but it crucially shows that whatever struggles the Booths encountered, the struggle of many black people in the country was dire. The questions being debated weren't merely political but very personal.

The novel illuminates a number of compelling historical details about the nature of life at the time from conditions in the home to the difficulty of travel before a better infrastructure was in place. Because of Julius and many of his sons' involvement in the theatre there is also an interesting look at the position of theatres within American society at the time. Equally, there was as much drama back stage and in the audience as on the stage itself. I enjoyed the inclusion of Adam, a gay theatre critic who becomes acquainted with the family, and the odd tension which arises between him and Edwin Booth. The novel also illuminates a number of larger historical facts which I wasn't previously aware of such as the distinction between owning and leasing slaves, the harrowing events/tragedy of The Dakota War and the fact that Maryland's state song included derogatory lyrics about Lincoln. It took more than ten attempts over forty years for both houses of the General Assembly to finally vote to abandon this song in 2021.

Does this novel give the definitive reason for John's extremism? Like most shocking occurrences, it shows how there is no one single cause but a multitude of influences and factors which led to this tragedy. Just like his elder sister Rosalie we're left asking “what if” and wonder how events might have turned out very differently. There's no way to control the past or its consequences. Instead, Fowler shows the hidden complexities of the past and the nuance of personalities who could easily be flattened into certain types. Like all great historical fiction, this story breathes life into the past and imaginatively fills in the gaps between known facts to show we're not disconnected from history. John Wilkes Booth might be anyone's brother and the violence which occurred following a monumental readjustment of power in the US will likely happen again.

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge

It's so moving when historical fiction gives an entirely new view of a particular time period while also raising larger questions which resonate with the world today. That's what Kaitlyn Greenidge “Libertie” does admirably while also telling a deeply engaging coming of age story about Libertie, a free-born black girl in Brooklyn being raised by her single mother in the time before and after The American Civil War. Recent novels such as “The Water Dancer”, “Conjure Women” and “The Prophets” created a radically new perspective about the abolition of slavery. These stories re-view our assumptions of the past and provide a deeper understanding of the resonance of history. 

Greenidge's novel considers the lasting impact of slavery for individuals who've been freed but are permanently burdened with the trauma sustained during their subjugation: “The people of Culver's back room had all lost themselves. They had returned in their minds back to the places they'd run from, the places they didn't name, even to their fellow travellers.” It also questions whether liberty can truly be found when systems of government are overhauled by people who also abuse their power - especially against women and the impoverished/under-educated working classes. It's gripping following Libertie's journey as she strives to obtain independence from her country, her mother and the husband who lures her into a life she doesn't expect. Through her eyes we see the hidden costs of compromise and how difficult it is to live in society without being subject to the will of insidious ideologies.

Libertie's mother is a practicing physician and, though she's a role model as a strong educated woman, she doesn't offer much emotional warmth to her daughter. She also has a clear plan that Libertie should follow in her footsteps, intently trains the girl in her practice and sends her to a school to get a formal education in medicine. But Libertie's interests don't align with her mother's nor are these two women held to the same standards as Libertie's mother has lighter skin than her own. When she meets a man named Emmanuel who entreats her to marry him, she sees a way to escape the path her mother laid out for her. Emmanuel brings her back to his native Haiti where his family seek to become leaders in this liberated black-governed nation. But Libertie soon discovers that this family's sense of national identity and who belongs in Haiti are confused, especially as Emmanuel's father Bishop Chase considers himself neither Haitian nor an American Negro. I'm glad I happened to recently read the biography “Black Spartacus” about a leader of the Haitian revolution as it gave me an idea of the challenges this newly independent country faced.

Having committed to a new life in Haiti, Libertie faces a painfully difficult decision about what she will do when she discovers this place doesn't live up to its utopian promise. In fact, (much like the character Kay Adams in The Godfather) she's unwittingly attached herself to a family involved in an insidious power structure she cannot abide. She seeks instead to form a kind of autonomy outside of either Haiti or America's rules. It's a heartening message especially now as we're growing ever more cognizant of hidden power imbalances in society and the lasting effects of trauma. This is such a distinct and impactful novel because its protagonist offers an entirely unique view of the past and present. 

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

Pregnancy is a traditional storyline that's part of many domestic dramas. With the prospect of a child those involved must decide whether to see this pregnancy through to birth and, if so, how they will make room in their lives for a baby and organize themselves as a family unit to support the child whether that's as a single parent, a married (or unmarried) couple or an extended family. Torrey Peters portrays this universal situation with the inclusion of a trans woman and an individual who has detransitioned. Katrina is a successful businesswoman who discovers she's pregnant while having an affair with her employee Ames. Neither are certain they can handle the full responsibilities of parenthood. Meanwhile, Ames reveals to Katrina that he'd previously transitioned to being a woman before transitioning back to being a man. While he was a trans woman he had a serious relationship with a trans woman named Reese. Although Reese has a tempestuous personality she has strong maternal urges so Ames proposes she could help them both raise the child. Peters brilliantly traces the compelling and complex story of these three characters in the time leading up to and proceeding conception. 

I'd been wanting to read this novel since it was first published but was encouraged to prioritise it after it was longlisted for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. There's been a controversy around the book being listed for this prize because the author is a trans woman and some readers object to the way female identity is portrayed in the story. I almost don't want to mention these claims as I don't believe they are credible and demonstrate damaging and prejudiced views against trans women. Yet to completely pretend the furore surrounding the novel isn't happening is to ignore the political questions this story wholeheartedly engages with. Peters addresses many issues to do with transphobia and trans identity within the story showing the full complexity of arguments that are occurring within the trans community, the overall queer community and society as a whole. The story skilfully represents many perspectives while also portraying views that are particular to these specific characters. The novel fully deserves recognition on this prize's list because it engages with an important dialogue about womanhood and how the concerns of many different women often intersect, but moreover it's an extremely enjoyable and well crafted novel.

The tension in this story emerges not just out of the question of this pregnancy but the many explosive or contemplative scenes where the characters have tense conversations or an inner dialogue about their circumstances. There are so many funny and tender moments as well as instances of emotional vulnerability where characters grapple with complex issues to do with sexuality and gender identity. It's pleasurable how pop culture references are frequently integrated into the characters' metaphorical understanding of the world. Humour often arises from the snappy dialogue but also the way characters frequently trip over their own contradictions and the irony of their situations. This makes them very relatable and I felt like I intimately knew all three main characters by the end. I also felt close to Ames and Reese as we get memories of their development which portray the pain, pleasure and hope both experience amidst their personal evolution. A scene where Ames (when he was Amy) first goes to a clothing store for transexuals felt particularly vivid as it's both a liberating and shameful experience. I also admire the way the novel boldly portrays the way people can act in self-destructive ways – especially when it comes to sexual relationships and how what we desire can contradict our moral beliefs. Most of all, it's such an engaging, intelligent and compelling story that takes seriously the dilemmas and struggles of its individual characters and the political issues which arise out of this family affair.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado's “In the Dream House” is a highly inventive memoir which primarily focuses on a past abusive relationship and the effects of it. Part of what drew me to reading this book was a curiosity to see how she'd meld her fantastical style of writing - which she displayed in her excellent short story collection “Her Body and Other Parties” - with her own autobiographical experience. In this book there are many straightforward recollections of her past particularly concerning an abusive relationship. But they're all framed within the idea of a dream house that was formed within this intense romance. Like a fairy tale castle this imagined space becomes the central setting of fantasy, pleasure and horror. And through this Machado considers different tropes found in folk literature and how they sync with the trajectory of her own turbulent love affair. 

What makes this so effective is it shows the author's own meaningful influences from literature to queer theory to the history of domestic violence and references to films such as Gaslight and Stranger by the Lake. Through her intelligent analysis and personal interpretation of these we feel how deeply traumatised she's been by this relationship. It's possible to get an idea of an abusive relationship from details such as threatening phone calls or bodily harm, but it's much harder to convey the intensely conflicted feelings of fear, shame, lust and love which accompany these events. Machado has found a method to do this which is unique to her sensibility and which fully shows the reader all the ambiguities of her experience. 

It's interesting how she chooses to primarily narrate this memoir through the second person. Fairly early on there is a switch from speaking about her past in the first person to describing it using the pronoun “you” which suggests a more analytical way or looking at her own experience as well as inviting the reader to imagine themselves in her shoes. I felt this was impactful in showing moments of realisation and perspective: “though it would not be until the next summer solstice that you’d be free from her, though you would spend the season’s precipitous drop into darkness alongside her, on this morning, light seeps into the sky and you are present with your body and mind and you do not forget.” In writing “you” the reader understands there is a mindfulness about how she realised this situation was not right, but she was nonetheless unable to free herself from it at the time.

In Meena Kandasamy's powerful novel “When I Hit You” about an abusive marriage, she observes how the shame is not always in the abuse itself but in having to stand to judgement after leaving that relationship. Machado is similarly aware how people will question what is considered abuse and she meaningfully explores how this is further complicated by it being a same-sex relationship. As she found when doing research, there are precious few accounts of domestic abuse in lesbian relationships or between other queer couples. This memoir is not only an important testimony to add to these seldom-recorded histories, but it's also an emotional and thoughtful examination of why so few exist.

This is Pleasure by Mary Gaitskill

Over the past few years it’s been inspiring seeing how the momentum of the Me Too movement has raised people’s awareness about sexual harassment and sexual assault as well as instigate a lot of discussion about what’s acceptable behaviour (especially in circumstances where power and influence are at play.) So it’s really interesting how Mary Gaitskill has written a novella about the blurry lines between friendship, flirtation and inappropriate conduct. “This is Pleasure” has a dual narrative that gives equal balance to the voices of long term friends Quin and Margot. Allegations of sexually harassment are made against Quin from former friends and colleagues at the publisher he works for and soon more and more women come forward to testify against him. Margot feels compelled to defend her friend, but finds herself questioning whether his habits and behaviour do indeed cross a line. It’s striking how Quin isn’t a stereotypical predator. He’s charming and sensitive, inspiring many women to befriend and confide in him. And sometimes there are cringe-worthy sexual overtones to his conversation which leads to fondling. He’s an entirely believable and recognizable character – as well as Margot who is quick to justify these types of actions with the explanation “It’s just the way he is.”  

It’s excellent how Gaitskill pries open the complexity of these relationships by alternating between their points of view. Reading this novella felt somewhat like watching a documentary as Quin and Margot are so firmly entrenched in their own perspectives they sometimes find it difficult to see the larger picture or consider the feelings of others. Even when describing the fact of Quin’s gross behaviour they find it easy to explain it away because they’re both so convinced about his essential innocence. Their adjacent points of view show the complexity of friendship and how supporting the people we love can sometimes lead us to become complicit in their inappropriate or harmful actions. As a publisher Quin also muses on the nature of storytelling and in this Gaitskill fascinatingly shows the levels on which personal stories can come to influence the conscience of society and, in turn, these social narratives can be integrated into our own personal narratives. This novella opens up such big issues in an impressively pared down style that its effect is all the more haunting than if it’d been a much longer novel. This is the first book I’ve read by Gaitskill but it’s made me eager to read more of her writing.

The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann (translated by Jen Calleja)

I’ve always found something tragically endearing about men who abandon their lives to go in search of themselves. For instance, I’m fascinated by the painter Paul Gauguin who virtually abandoned his middle class family to live and work on his art in self-imposed exile in French Polynesia. You could say there’s a philosophical tension here between a man’s expression of his free will and his obligations to his family, but it stinks all over of masculine arrogance and pride. It’s understandable that an individual wants to be fulfilled, but rather than take constructive steps towards achieving a more satisfactory existence so many men violently tear themselves out of their self-created environments to “find themselves” and start anew. Often women are left with the fallout of their rapid exit: paying their debts or caring for their children. Such is the case in Marion Poschmann’s “The Pine Islands” which begins with husband Gilbert Silvester waking from a nightmare that his wife has cheated on him. He viciously confronts her though there is no evidence of an indiscretion. Consumed by his paranoid fantasy he abruptly flies to Japan to follow a the classic poet Bashō’s pilgrimage through the rural north of the country. Poschmann hilariously skewers the manly vanity of his chaotic journey while taking seriously his ontological quest for meaning.

There’s an atmosphere of humour running throughout the novel as Gilbert pigheadedly marches on his desperate way through the carefully ordered society of Japan. He’s running away from Mathilda ignoring her numerous calls or only engaging in brief cryptic phone conversations. But, at the same time, he frequently writes her letters reflecting on the artistic quests of past poets in a way that betrays his intense need for a tender connection and desire for his intellectual ideas to be respected. Gilbert’s never achieved the success he longed for as a scholar of the representation of beards in art and film. His failure isn’t surprising given his pretentious and crackpot theories on the way beards are perceived and culturally fashioned by homosexuals through the centuries. So his sojourn to Matsuishima (the bay of pine islands) to escape the entrapments of life and compose the most delicately distilled poetry feels more like a way of evading his own feelings of failure rather than progressing to a higher state of being.

Along the way, Gilbert also encounters another man in crisis named Yosa. When Gilbert interrupts Yosa’s plan to commit suicide he takes him on as a companion and guide by convincing Yosa he should at least defer his self-annihilation until he’s in a suitably beautiful location. Their connection is quite touching as they are in a way both cases of men who’ve failed society’s expectations for achieving success and a certain kind of masculinity. Yosa even goes so far to mask his failure by wearing fake beards. This is also a means of consciously alienating himself from the thriving professional men around him who don’t maintain any facial hair if they want to be taken seriously. The trajectory of Gilbert and Yosa’s friendship is touching because it shows how they should really find a bond in their different feelings of alienation, but instead fail to connect because of their masculine pride.

It’s interesting how Poschmann’s writing starts to emulate the poetic striving for profundity of its protagonist as the story progresses. It’s difficult to know if this is the author’s voice or Gilbert’s consciousness seeping through: “They sat on the train as the landscape slid easily by, leaving station after station in their wake. Stationary travelling, action without action. Or a dull, unconscious drifting, like tattered leaves on the wind.” Gilbert becomes so intent on fashioning haiku poems in the atmospheric settings he visits along Bashō’s trail that it makes sense the story takes on this tone – equally the narrative becomes more hallucinatory as Gilbert increasingly loses the plot. But it does pose a challenging dilemma for the reader to know whether to take these reflective observations seriously or not. I felt it was a shame the novel never fully expresses a justified anger at Gilbert’s monstrously self-centred and casually abusive behaviour but instead opts to take him seriously. But overall, I interpreted this novel as a cunning form of satire and immensely enjoyed this aspect of it.

Melmoth by Sarah Perry

There’s something so invitingly intoxicating about the way Sarah Perry blends the tone of classic Victorian literature with a modern sensibility. Her previous novel “The Essex Serpent” was actually set in the Victorian era and new novel “Melmoth” is set roughly in present-day Prague. But they both employ a self-conscious authorial control over the narrative that contemplates many moral questions while (most importantly) telling a riveting gothic-inflected story at the same time.

“Melmoth” centres around the story of Helen Franklin, an English woman with a guilty secret working as a translator of mundane manuals in the Czech Rep. But the novel also includes many fictional documents from the past detailing Nazi occupations and the forced migration of different ethnicities. All these accounts are tied together with occasional sightings of a figure called Melmoth, a dark-clad woman with bleeding feet who legend claims roams the Earth for eternity seeking to assuage her piteous loneliness. As Helen surveys these documents from different cultures about individuals who make dubious choices in times of political unrest, she gradually confronts her own past and the possibility that Melmoth is now pursuing her.

Helen goes to a dramatic production of the opera Rusalka about a water sprite from Slavic mythology

Perry creates a menacing sense of atmosphere filled with unsettling natural phenomena and things which seem to be lurking in the shadows just out of sight. The question of whether Melmoth is real or not is teased out in quite a unique way where her presence is both feared and invited. At one point Helen contemplates how “I wasn’t only scared. I wanted something to be there – I wanted to see something waiting for me – do you think you can long for something that scares you half to death.” There’s the dark desire to be titillated by what scares us the most and there’s the conscience-stricken belief we deserve to be punished. Helen is challenged over the course of this tale to radically confront and judge herself. This is a richly evocative novel that provokes unsettling questions about our obligations to people in need and what we do with our guilt when we’re all on our own.  

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

When considering the immeasurable evil of slavery it’s difficult to fully fathom the ramifications it had amongst so many individuals' lives. Not only were people’s freedom and lives brutally curtailed, controlled and cut short, but their talent and potential was also squandered. Esi Edugyan evocatively portrays the life of George Washington Black or “Wash”, a character with the aptitude to be a great artist and scientist were he not born into slavery on a Barbados plantation in 1818. But she grants him the potential to partially foster his talents when he comes under the apprenticeship of an eccentric scientist who is the brother of the plantation owner/overseer. What follows is a fantastically imaginative, heartrending and compulsively readable tale of his journey and growth into early adulthood. It’s a richly immersive story that also powerfully shows the perspective of slaves who feel “We had been estranged from the potential of our own bodies, from the revelation of everything our bodies and minds could accomplish.” This psychological state is complexly rendered as are the way characters surrounding Wash fail to fully empathize with him and understand the ramifications of slavery. “Washington Black” is an astounding novel.

Edugyan perceptively shows the way that the development of children are so atrociously twisted growing up in slavery, how relationships become perverted and emotionally disrupted. Not only does she portray this in her protagonist but it’s also poignantly rendered in the character of a slave girl who is seen only fleetingly, but Wash observes at one point that she has become pregnant and we’re left to horrifically wonder how this eleven year old’s pregnancy came about. The author also sympathetically shows the challenging emotional state of a boy going through adolescence where new feelings of stimulation are so often mixed with a sense of shame: “I would wake aroused against the sheets, feeling all at once thrillingly alive in my skin, and ashamed.” Wash encounters many challenges that prevent him from feeling pride in either his body or mind. His journey is both an inner struggle to fully foster and own his natural gifts as well as a physical quest to survive the confines of his restricted circumstances. Amidst the immediate action of Wash’s trials, there are intriguing mysteries in the background which gradually unfold over the course of the book.

Detail from a 1657 map of Barbados, showing plantations and escaped slaves.

I also really appreciated the beautiful writing in this novel, particularly when Edugyan is portraying the natural world and Wash’s scientific study of it. Maybe I just have an affinity for scenes in stories that take place under water, but just like Egan’s “Manhattan Beach” there’s a stunning scene in this book when Wash dives underwater and discovers a liberating space. Edugyan writes “How luminous the world was, in the shallows. I could see all the golden light of the dying morning, I could see the debris in it stirring, coming alive. Blue, purple, gold cilia turned in the watery shafts of light slicing down. In the gilded blur I caught the flashing eyes of shrimp, alien and sinewy… all this I let drop away, so that I hung with my arms suspended at my sides, the soft current tugging at me. The cold sucked at me and the light weakened, and I was finally, mercifully, nothing.” It’s as if the only place Wash can be liberated from the constrictions of his identity is in this alien underwater world where he can never truly belong.

In its very title this book asks a powerful open-ended question about all the people in history who possessed innate talent and intelligence, but whose skin colour and status dictated whether they realized their potential or were forced to squander it. Even though it’s a historical novel it makes a powerful political statement naming its slave hero after the first US president. In this era after Obama’s presidency it seems horrifically regressive that the current president is someone who only achieved his position through money and an old-world sense of superiority. It feels like Edugyan is challenging us to consider under what terms we want to found our future: superficial details or real capability? There are so many impactful themes and ideas in “Washington Black”, but what makes the novel so gripping are the surprising twists the story takes that left me desperate to discover what will happen next.

The Word for Woman is Wilderness by Abi Andrews

Sometimes it can be so difficult to separate my emotional response to a book compared to my critical response. I don't think I necessarily have to which is one of the great things about a book blog! But reading Abi Andrews' debut novel “The Word for Woman is Wilderness” I was even more aware of this dilemma because it's inspired by and about subjects I'm really interested in and sympathetic towards. It's narrated from the perspective of nineteen year old Erin who has a passionate interest in the writing of Thoreau and the life of Christopher McCandless whose tragic journey led to his accidental death in the Alaskan wilderness. This was chronicled in Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book “Into the Wild” and a film with the same name directed by Sean Penn. Erin observes how the famous instances of individuals pioneering into the wilderness to establish a distance from the society whose values they question have all been directed through a men's perspectives. Certainly the experience and perspective of a woman who sets out on such a journey would be very different. So (against her parents' wishes) she ventures out from her home in England to the Alaskan wilderness and chronicles her journey on video with the plan to edit it into a documentary. She states: “if running into the wild is so often a wounded retreat from societal constraints and oppressions, then shouldn’t anyone but straight white men be doing it more?” Erin charts the mental and physical struggles she faces on her way while also contemplating both the dynamic distinctions and commonalities between the journey of mankind vs womankind.

The novel is evenly broken up into two sections: Erin's journey through the Arctic circle and hitchhiking across Canada to arrive in Alaska and her time inhabiting a remote cabin in the unpopulated wilderness. But throughout she makes references and draws in concepts from an enormous amount of sources: everything from quantum mechanics to Cartesian philosophy to the history of the Cold War space race to David Attenborough documentaries to the novels of Jack London. Such a dizzying array of topics is impressive and fascinating. It leads her to propose enticing new connections and pose deeply-thoughtful questions. But it has the effect of feeling like you've sat up all night with a fellow university student who is excitedly talking through everything they've been reading about. It can get a bit overwhelming at points and detract from the through line of the narrator's journey. Along the way Erin encounters several fascinating characters from an Icelandic woman she meets on a ship to a Native American who aides her after meeting a nasty trucker to a misogynistic interloper in Alaska. It felt like if Andrews had spent longer developing scenes with these characters and rounding out their personalities the novel would have felt more like a story than a collection of interesting concepts.

Frequent references are made to author and conservationist Rachel Carson

Erin's determined will to enter the wilderness leads the story. There are some beautifully poetic observations about our subjective experience of landscapes and the environment. When viewing the barren icy terrain of Greenland she states “It feels like trespassing to be alive in a place that is not dead but is inexistence, negation of potentiality. Anything alive is only ever passing through.” Then, at another point she remarks how “The tundra is always in soliloquy. Mostly it whistles and sings, but now and then the wind will die down suddenly and in the utter silence and still it feels like you are on stage. As though you did not know there were curtains until they just suddenly opened. Then the cacophony of noise again like applause.” There are also some great comic moments where she makes wry observations about the nature of travel like trying to understand the native language of a country you've entered through travel books: “I enjoy the narratives of phrase books. They always seem to follow a haphazard protagonist who is forever getting lost and bothering the emergency services.”

Of course, it's Erin's inner journey which is the real focus on this novel. She comments how “An esoteric landscape does not help a person to find their way if they are lost; you could walk from the centre of here and never find your way again.” It's necessary for her to physically travel in order to arrive at a new place of understanding and radically reform her sense of self. It's also necessary that it's a journey she makes alone: “It is not a casting out with purpose but a getting lost. It is the difference between solitude and loneliness.” It's touching how her time in Alaska leads her to reflect much more strongly about her own upbringing and the machinations of her psychology. She's aware of how much she's internalized stories of explorers as being strictly male enterprises because almost all the literature about it is written by men. She catches herself “Positioning myself as male again; my masculine counterpart who lives in my brain, appending a fraud penis so I can traverse Scott’s Antarctica in my imagination.” The fact of her journey makes a powerful statement that women also enter (both the spatial and inner) Wilderness. So, while I think it's sometimes too erratic, this novel was a great pleasure for me to read and it's also a flag that needed to be planted because Abi Andrews is marking new terrain.

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

What an immensely pleasurable joy it is reading “The Essex Serpent” by Sarah Perry! I’ve been eagerly anticipating this novel since it was first published last year. I heard such high praise from friends and reviewers I trust and it was Waterstone’s book of the year. I’m greatly relieved that it lives up to the hype. This richly detailed Victorian-set novel with gothic inflections and distinctly vibrant characters gives the feeling of a modern-day book by Charlotte Brontë or George Eliot. Set over a year it follows the widow Cora Seaborne’s excursion to the rural Essex village of Aldwinter which buffets the edge of the gloomy Blackwater marshes. Cora has amateur archaeological inclinations and becomes excited by the secrets this location might hold after rumours and paranoia spread among the inhabitants that a prehistoric beast roams the waters. Strange sightings are reported, bodies are found, children turn hysterical and people go missing. It’s full of suspense as the mystery gradually unfolds, but also skilfully presents competing ideologies of science vs religion and reason vs faith through the actions and sensibilities of the characters. More importantly it shows how these perspectives aren’t necessarily dogmatic and that “far from there being one truth alone, there may be several truths, none of which it would be possible to prove or disprove.” This is a novel which delivers highly on adventure and romance to form an intelligent, moving story.

Cora experiences a sense of independence and freedom now that she’s released from her marriage. She no longer makes much effort with her appearance and can pursue what solely interests her. In particular, she feels liberated from gender constrictions stating “The wonderful thing about being a widow is that, really, you’re not obliged to be much of a woman anymore.” This allows her to express her intelligence and also begin to understand what she desires for the first time (rather than always projecting what her late husband desired.) She’s accompanied by her longtime companion Martha, an ardent socialist who harbours a secret attraction to Cora. At Aldwinter Cora is introduced to the local reverend William Ransome and his luminous wife Stella. The burgeoning romantic relationship that develops between Cora and William is especially interesting because it’s based primarily on their different ideas and competing perspectives as well as physical attraction. Perry is especially good at portraying the complexity of relationships where the boundaries of gender and friendship are blurred.

Although the novel is framed around the notorious gigantic serpent which may or may not be terrorizing the villagers, it’s more about what reality people choose to believe. Some ascribe to values based around superstition, others live by principles from religious texts and others aspire to forge a new understanding of the world based upon scientific findings. What Perry does so magnificently is imbue how the characters perceive their environment based on these perspectives of the world. To Martha who is cognizant of social and economic imbalances “It seemed… that the city’s bricks were red with the blood of its citizens, its mortar pale with the dust of their bones; that deep in its foundations women and children lay head-to-toe in buried ranks, bearing up the city on their backs.” But wealthy George Spencer who dabbles in the medical field expresses that “sometimes I think we must be walking on shoals of bodies without realising it and all the earth’s a graveyard.” While Cora, with her faith in archaeological discovery, feels that “all the earth was a graveyard with gods and monsters under their feet, waiting for weather or a hammer and brush to bring them up to a new kind of life.” These views of the world around them overlap and form a complex picture of not only the changing landscape, but the evolution of the people and wildlife that inhabited it.

Based on the legend of the Essex Serpent which first appeared in a local pamphlet in 1669

Alongside the compelling story and complex characters, the novel is especially enjoyable for the deeply emotive language Perry uses in her descriptions. At some times she expresses a Virginia Woolf-like sensibility where a room literally comes alive when the characters enter it: “Light picked out channels cut in crystal glasses and glossed the polished wood of the table, and Stella’s forget-me-nots bloomed on their napkins.” The descriptions show a playful use of language and convey a very definite sense of mood. I don’t think I’ve read about such a powerfully expressive sense of atmosphere since Andrew Michael Hurley’s eerie and suspenseful “The Loney”. It’s also impressive how this keen sense of detail brings to life the natural environment of Essex which is a county that is somewhat forgotten or maligned these days.

It would be easy to write a lot about many of the other fascinating characters that populate this novel. It feels like Cora’s son Francis may have some form of autism as he has a regimentally ordered mind and emotionally detached personality. Cora’s friend Luke Garrett is a surgeon who pioneers controversial new practices. The ginger-haired girl Naomi Banks possesses unruly powers and passions. Stella and William’s precocious daughter Joanna understands how exerting authority with confidence can get people to follow you. Their lives intersect in fascinatingly dramatic ways, but I don’t want to go into too much detail to avoid giving the plot away. Suffice it to say, the fact that they are so memorable is a testament to how distinctly original Perry makes her characters. Many surprises and delights are to be found in this book. “The Essex Serpent” is as intricate and beautiful as its cover.