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)
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Love the quotes you’ve picked.
She has a nice line in snark!
This sounds very clever, although I wonder if I might find it a bit distancing. The quotes are great – I’d definitely give this one a try!
It’s very smart but not a comfortable read.
Hmm, I find that this premise sounds very odd to me — why would the wealthy person be the one to connect with working-class people and to be more focused and ambitious, while the working-class character is aimless and simply wasting time? In my experience in university, it was often the other way around . . .
I see what you mean but Avery is so plagued with self-consciousness that it felt credible to me, contrasting with Frances’s total self-belief.
Good point — I guess if the implication is that she feels out of place in this elitist environment and therefore finds it hard to believe in her own work, it could work in that respect. I just find it disappointing how, with the increasing dearth of working-class people in the arts these days, so often working-class characters are reduced to either caricatures or “trauma porn” instead of seeming like real people. Avery spiralling into what sounds like rather bizarre, almost cartoonishly self-destructive behavior seems like a really unflattering parody to me, and God knows there are already enough one-dimensional stereotypes about poor and working-class people as it is. I haven’t read the book though, so I accept that there may be a lot more nuance to the story than what I’m picking up on here!
The bigger question is about the representation of working-class people in publishing which remains very patchy, as far as I know (I’m a bit out of touch), and clearly effects the books that are published, certainly in the UK although this is an American novel.
Absolutely. It’s a big problem on both sides of the pond!
Ah, this appeals to me. Going on the list for next year!
Hurrah! Hope you enjoy it, Cathy.
Hah, that first quote made me snort out loud. It sounds like an interesting comparison (theme-wise, not style-wise) to Maggie Armstrong’s linked collection Old Romantics (I can’t remember if you’ve read that one, or if it was on your TBR, but I think you mentioned it along the way)!
I do have it in my tbr! Well remembered, Marcie.
So much to love here! “two friends who meet at a liberal arts college – one looks set for success, the other adrift”–pretty much sums up the alumni of any small liberal arts college or those who can afford being adrift from any college. I do resent the term “flyover USA” though. There are actual humans, many with an excellent education and keen political awareness live there. Life does happen outside of NYC, LA, SF & Seattle though the media denies it lol. Good review.
Thanks, and I understand your resentment coming from the Londoncentric UK.
Sounds interesting. I think I have seen it reviewed in the US blogs. If it gets an emotional response then a book has some merit.
True. I think if might strike more of chord in the States. Definitely worth a read, though.