Work is a holiday and I smile into the beautiful quiet.
Thea is called in to cover a colleague’s leave, juggling the domestic chores with more help from her partner’s mother than from Nick himself. At the weekly meeting she quietly seethes when the male team members looking to her when the biscuits run out, resisting the silent implication that she should replenish the plate, or sort out clean coffee cups. Her mother-in-law leaves pioneer women’s memoirs out in a passive aggressive nudge towards full-time motherhood. When the volcano erupts, coating everything in ash, it’s Thea who picks up the slack at work and at home while Nick cloisters himself in the spare room, working from home for a fitness influencer. Called in to deal with a distressed heifer, Thea is infuriated by its owners’ cruelty and lets them know it. A family crisis makes her support of her young female colleague impossible. Suddenly, work recedes far into the background.
Once, the wife’s skin had been covered in a tiny volcanic range, ready to splinter and fly apart if pushed.
Interspersing Thea’s narrative are ‘Figures’ – stream-of-conscious passages, brief poems, cries from the heart repeated across the page – together with a fable in footnotes, all of which draw on a variety of sources as Wallace makes clear in her notes. Risky for a debut but overall, it worked for me, evoking the chaos of domesticity and parenting while holding down a responsible job with little help. Thea’s frustration is underlined by a dark humour, leavened with flashes of love and affection. The eruption echoes her consuming fury which may seem a little heavy handed yet the novel is far from that. Ash is very brief, even more so given the font size and the white space surrounding the Figures, but it would be a shame to race through it. It won’t appeal to everyone, but I found it an impressive first novel and will be looking out for Wallace’s second.
Cornerstone: London 9781529155600 160 pages Hardback (NetGalley)
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Sounds good. And I’m a great fan of novellas which can nicely slip into gaps when I’m busy with work.
I know what you mean. So much can be packed into a novella, too.
I think a good novella is a true work of art.
Absolutely!
I like the sound of this too. I hope it turns up in the wild soon in this hemisphere.
Just published here, although in hardback. I’m hoping for a paperback edition sometime next year.
Sounds interesting – I can see it would reward careful reading rather than racing through it.
Definitely! It’s one to savour.
Interesting that it’s not widely available in the UK; I just requested a copy from one of multiple libraries here in the US that had it in their collections.
I’m glad to hear you found it easily available. It’s just published here although I don’t know if it’s been taken up by libraries.
This looks good. I’m on the hunt for more NZ authors as my husband is going there for several weeks in November-December and I want to choose appropriate reading matter for him — and me while he’s away. I’m also on the hunt for a book or two he could buy me over there that can’t be got at all in the UK. (Good to know this one is now available here.)
That could become quite a long list! It’s always mystified me how few New Zealand and Australian books become available here.
I’ve consulted Lisa (ANZ Lit Lovers) and will also remind myself of tempting titles I’ve seen on Kate’s blog (Books Are My Favourite and Best).
Hmm… I hope your husband plans to take an extra bag!
Interesting. I am often compelled towards poets writing novels though the results are very uneven! But they often really do know how to use white space to great effect.
They do, and how to say a great deal in very few words.
Well you had me interested right up to the point where you explain the Figures. Not sure this is for me which is a shame because it’s so hard to find books by NZ authors here in the UK
They are, aren’t they. It’s the same for Australian and Canadian books by less well known writers, sadly.
This sounds interesting Susan – I don’t read a lot of NZ authors.
So few seem to be published here which I find odd but perhaps it’s a rights issue.
Is it actually set in a specific area of NZ Susan, or is it more NZ-esque? I will be in NZ for NovNov, so this could be a perfect travelling companion 🙂
No specific town is mentioned, Brona, but I gather its setting resembles the volcanic landscape around Aotearoa. It would make a great choice for NovNov.