“Instead of writing a funny book about a delightful young protagonist, I write circles around the idea of aftermath.” So muses the narrator of Briohny Doyle’s latest novel – a deeply inside (and, in truth, typically humorous and pleasant) work that takes the reader into the thoughts of a grieving, remoted lady.
Briohny Doyle and her canine, Baby. Her novel has a powerful ingredient of autofiction. Nash Ferguson
Like Doyle’s earlier books, together with the 2021 novel (exploring motherhood within the face of local weather change), and the 2017 non-fiction work (melding memoir and cultural criticism to unpack coming of age within the time of neoliberalism), this novel is anxious about the best way a person responds to crises each private and world.
Doyle is anxious with the best way a person responds to crises.
In this case, the narrator, BB, has misplaced her accomplice and father in an 18-month interval, and her loneliness and discombobulation are exacerbated by COVID lockdowns. She strikes to Balboa Bay, a beachside suburb of Silver City (Doyle’s model of Sydney), the place she finds consolation and companionship in her canine, Baby, and the dogs round her when neighbours mistake her for a canine coach. The narration of her day-to-day life is interspersed with recollections, notably of her accomplice, who’s referred to with reverential capitalisation, almost like an imagined larger being. So, who’s she with out Him, and the way does she go on?
The story turns into more and more surreal and contains splashes of magic realism as BB and Baby develop telepathic communication, and totally different sounds, reminiscent of a canine whose howl sounds just like the wind, give her days their unusual color. Photographs by Nash Ferguson dotted all through convey BB’s world into a brand new dimension.
Why We Are Here bears similarities – formal and thematic – to 2018 novel, , which depicts the connection between an unnamed novelist and a canine after the suicide of her buddy, the canine’s unique proprietor. In the custom of the modern literary novel, neither guide is particularly plot-driven, as a substitute tracing the generally contradictory, generally repetitive contours of a life impacted by grief and loss, and the therapeutic powers of canine companionship.
Both novels have components of autofiction, which lends a way of emotional veracity and weight. Doyle misplaced her father and accomplice in actual life, and he or she additionally revealed a bit on this masthead in June concerning the lack of her real-life canine, Baby, which is heavy with the identical type of grief and love that make up a lot of this guide.
BB is a author, and her ideas unfold in an appropriately literary manner: Doyle weaves in snippets from the likes of Rebecca Solnit and Sheila Heti, and PA bulletins from a neighbouring jail quote students and philosophers reminiscent of Lauren Berlant and Judith Butler. The latter, particularly, makes the work really feel vaguely educational, which can dilute its accessibility or attraction most on to a distinct segment readership. But there’s a cyclical sense of consolation in BB discovering solace within the writers who got here earlier than her, as a reader may discover solace on this novel.
The motion outdoors BB’s thoughts is basically within the slice-of-life fashion; interactions with neighbours are sometimes cursory, serving to disclose social truths somewhat than shine a light-weight on any explicit particular person characters or their traits. Her entanglements with new love pursuits Vera and Franz are extra insightful, illustrating the challenges of romantic connection following the top of a serious relationship. Vera, particularly, is an enthralling character: a librarian-in-training with sturdy ideas about tips on how to rearrange the Dewey decimal system outdoors the patriarchal and meritocratic gaze.
When nothing and all the pieces occurs in a novel, the sensation is a mild, meandering sense of drift. It can really feel directionless, however there’s additionally a beautiful type of move, helped by Doyle’s evocative, unhurried prose.
The novel is as a lot about grief as it’s about survival and gratitude, as BB observes: “In the aftermath of Him I’d found the outside world’s ongoingness obnoxious, but I was wrong. External reality may have been cruelly incongruous, but it was still generously there.”
The Booklist is a weekly publication for guide lovers from books editor Jason Steger. .
