Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy: A bleakly funny novella

The blurb for Anika Jade Levy’s Flat Earth suggested an interesting contrast between two friends who meet at a liberal arts college – one looks set for success, the other adrift and unable to make anything stick. Set against the backdrop of the New York art world, Levy’s debut opens with Avery and Frances driving across their country in search of material for Frances’s experimental documentary and finding it in abundance.

I wandered around the lobby, the courtyard, the parking lot. I waited for a husband or for something to happen to me.

Avery and Frances are postgrad students, both working on the final assignment of their media studies course but while Frances is powering ahead with her exploration of a post-industrial America awash with opioid addiction and conspiracy theories, Avery’s attempts to write a book of cultural reports has stalled. Frances is from a wealthy Southern background contrasting with Avery’s single parent upbringing, yet it’s Frances who connects easily with the people they meet in the flyover US who have more in common with Avery. Shortly after their return to the city, Frances drops out, marrying the blue-collar Forrest in N. Carolina. Struggling to pay the rent, Avery exchanges sex for money with a series of older, wealthy men who seem to despise her, taking up work at a right-wing dating agency in desperation, amazed when Frances completes her Flat Earth project and the praise heaped upon it by New York’s art cognoscenti.

Sometimes work means taking drugs, watching a movie, and tweeting. But it’s still work. You still have to show up on time every night with a good attitude.

Levy’s bleakly funny novella is narrated by Avery in a series of short, fragmented chapters. Avery spends her life seemingly waiting to be rescued by a man, reaching for stimulants in order to write but still not managing it, whatever affection she had for her friend eaten up by envy at her success although that appears to do Frances little good. There’s a good deal of acerbic humour to enjoy in her narrative edging into snark which suits my taste well. I’m not a reader who needs to like a narrator but Avery tried my patience at times, her increasingly dangerous decisions leading her into humiliation and subjugation, not least the final risk she takes. It was Levy’s sharp social observation and lampooning of the art world coupled with a smartly polished style that kept me reading her novel; hard to choose from the many quotes I picked out. A novel to admire rather than enjoy, although I’m not its target readership. It left me uncomfortable but perhaps that was Levy’s aim.

Abacus Books: London 9780349148090 224 pages Hardback (read via NetGalley)