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Book review: Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Fair warning: the contents of this book are triggering and this review is more spoilery than normal. Heads up.
Print date: 1995 (20s: 1, 50s: 2, 60s: 4, 70s: 9, 80s: 7, 90s: 7, 00s: 18, 10s: 1)
This is a book about the terrible, awful things that people can do to each other, and I could not put it down. I'm not talking about accident-by-the-side-of-the-road voyeurism either, I'm talking negative pressure in the prose itself and a main character that you can empathize with even while being utterly horrified by her life. This is not a book where I took joy in the subject matter, but the delivery is a thing of beauty.
It's about abuse, largely. It starts with kidnap and rape, moves through systemic parental abuse of their children, works out a sexual relationship soured by one person's desire to control and humiliate the other, and finishes with drug addiction. On one level it's the story of the main character growing up and understanding herself, but that makes it sound like an episode of Dawson's Creek. She doesn't learn by reflecting on her experience and talking about it with her friends, she learns by surviving long enough that eventually the patterns become obvious.
In other hands this would be a vulgar and morbid read; in Griffith's it's vivid and sensitive. Lore's life has broken her will and desires but there are things far beneath her conscious mind that struggle on even as she tries to deny them. We get to watch as she rebuilds herself one misstep at a time. And we want her to. Lore is one of those paradoxical characters who is absolutely defined by her circumstances and yet feels like something different underneath.
Unfortunately, the villains of the piece don't get nearly the same caliber of development. There's a lot of "X happened to them, so they became Y" psychology-- particularly at the end of the book, where the necessity of wrapping things up fosters pat summations. I shouldn't even be able to call these characters villains with a straight face, but here I am. I can't say that I wish I could sympathize with them better, given what they do; but I wish I understood them a little more. Or that it had been made clear that there is something inside them that will always defy explanation.
I wish I could find the right adjective for this book, but I'm going to have to settle for a metaphor. I suffer from anxiety, and there is a state of mind I reach sometimes where I close my eyes, try not to think about the tightness in my chest, and wish I could be somewhere, anywhere else. When I do open my eyes there's a sadness like an anchor in my heart because I wish so hard that everything would change and it never does.
This book has its home in that moment, and what comes after.
Verdict: Keep and lend with caution. (31.5/83)
Page count: 343 (16832 total)
Completed: 49 (22 female authors, 25 male authors, 2 anthology)
Rejected: 34 (20 male authors, 14 female authors)
Next book due: Friday, May 13th
Print date: 1995 (20s: 1, 50s: 2, 60s: 4, 70s: 9, 80s: 7, 90s: 7, 00s: 18, 10s: 1)
This is a book about the terrible, awful things that people can do to each other, and I could not put it down. I'm not talking about accident-by-the-side-of-the-road voyeurism either, I'm talking negative pressure in the prose itself and a main character that you can empathize with even while being utterly horrified by her life. This is not a book where I took joy in the subject matter, but the delivery is a thing of beauty.
It's about abuse, largely. It starts with kidnap and rape, moves through systemic parental abuse of their children, works out a sexual relationship soured by one person's desire to control and humiliate the other, and finishes with drug addiction. On one level it's the story of the main character growing up and understanding herself, but that makes it sound like an episode of Dawson's Creek. She doesn't learn by reflecting on her experience and talking about it with her friends, she learns by surviving long enough that eventually the patterns become obvious.
In other hands this would be a vulgar and morbid read; in Griffith's it's vivid and sensitive. Lore's life has broken her will and desires but there are things far beneath her conscious mind that struggle on even as she tries to deny them. We get to watch as she rebuilds herself one misstep at a time. And we want her to. Lore is one of those paradoxical characters who is absolutely defined by her circumstances and yet feels like something different underneath.
Unfortunately, the villains of the piece don't get nearly the same caliber of development. There's a lot of "X happened to them, so they became Y" psychology-- particularly at the end of the book, where the necessity of wrapping things up fosters pat summations. I shouldn't even be able to call these characters villains with a straight face, but here I am. I can't say that I wish I could sympathize with them better, given what they do; but I wish I understood them a little more. Or that it had been made clear that there is something inside them that will always defy explanation.
I wish I could find the right adjective for this book, but I'm going to have to settle for a metaphor. I suffer from anxiety, and there is a state of mind I reach sometimes where I close my eyes, try not to think about the tightness in my chest, and wish I could be somewhere, anywhere else. When I do open my eyes there's a sadness like an anchor in my heart because I wish so hard that everything would change and it never does.
This book has its home in that moment, and what comes after.
Verdict: Keep and lend with caution. (31.5/83)
Page count: 343 (16832 total)
Completed: 49 (22 female authors, 25 male authors, 2 anthology)
Rejected: 34 (20 male authors, 14 female authors)
Next book due: Friday, May 13th