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Saltwater: Winner of the Portico Prize

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There were times when I wanted to hear more about the other characters, but then the entire project is devoted to one young woman’s subjectivity. There is little dialogue, but if the interiority can occasionally feel wearing, it is worth it for its refreshing perspective. Lucy feels the acute tension and anxiety that arises between leaving your community and staying. I found parts of this novel intensely moving – I wish I had read it when I was 19. For those who leave, it will be a balm to know they are not alone. For those who stay, Saltwater tells you there is life elsewhere, but that finding it can tear your heart in two. Anyway, moving past the atrocious writing, another thing that grated is the cruelly stereotypical portrayal of the Irish - regarding the narrator's grandfather's childhood in Ireland, after establishing that he slept in his aunt's barn, this paragraph is, quite literally, the only information we receive about that period in his life:

We talked about practical things when she called me in London; when the funeral would be and how I would get there. We listened to the radio during the drive from the airport and at the wake we chatted to my grandfather’s neighbours and friends. It wasn’t until he had been buried and everyone had gone home to their brandies that we were alone together in the silent cottage. The distance glinted between us, sharp and dangerous. We sat on a sheet of newspaper on the floor and looked around. This is a debut novel and it won the Portico Prize earlier this year. The Portico Prize is biennial and is awarded to writers from the north of England. I have read a couple of the books on the shortlist (doesn’t have to be a novel) and they have been of a good standard. This one was no exception. It is a coming of age novel, but much more. There is a focus on mother/daughter relationships, but it is also about class. The protagonist Lucy is brought up in a working class area of Sunderland: she leaves to go to university in London. Some time after graduation she goes to spend some time in her late grandfather’s cottage in Ireland. The chapters are short, often very short and not entirely linear. At times this was a minor irritation, but no more. The novel is also about divided loyalties, feeling torn: North vs South, urban vs suburban vs rural, coping with an alcoholic father, trying to fit in. There are strong women characters here, often dealing with alcoholic and unpredictable men and it runs through generations, even Lucy’s grandmother: For me, the only way to write about bodies is in a fractured, fragmented way, because that’s my experience of inhabiting a body; it’s something quite dissonant. I also wanted to create a sense of life happening to you if you’re someone who doesn’t have a lot of power. It’s non-chronological to create a sense of how experiences are existing in linear time but also all at once within the psyche.The memories are not only limited to herself. There’s also segments involving Lucy’s grandmother, and her mother meeting and fallout with her father, various boyfriends and her brother’s partial deafness, As you noticed I said segments and that’s how the book is divided ; small paragraphs, which work as little memory blasts, obviously the more one reads, the more a plot forms, Class and gender are central and it is unusual to read a strong working class northern female voice. It is semi-autobiographical and parts of it mirrors Andrews’ own experience. Andrews looks at stereotypes and her own experience and the tensions growing up and moving on bring:

Jessica Andrews doesn’t exactly write. She paints . . . Saltwater is the story of Lucy remembering—but also, sort of, forgetting—the life that has left her so fractured . . . If Lucy’s been pulled into pieces then so has the book. It’s splintered into dozens of very short chapters, each one an artist’s impression of her infancy, her childhood or student days. The primal craving for her mother is always there, but alcoholism . . . hangs over the whole, too, cloying and sad . . . This is a book worth taking yourself off to bed early for.”This book comes lauded with acclaim about its freshness, voice and vision - but, you know, it's just that old, old story of a girl struggling to become an adult and to find her place in the world. There can still be mileage in this theme but this book hits all the predictable milestones : wayward bodies, boys, sex, struggling not to be objectified, pigeon-holed by class and accent, the push-pull of mother-daughter relationships, wanting to be separate and individual while wanting to belong. The book opens with, main protagonist, Lucy finding out that her grandfather is dead, so she heads of to meet her mum in Sunderland and they go to Ireland.

You write forcefully about the body through out the book, particularly about the changes in Lucy’s body from birth through adolescence into adulthood...Jessica Andrews . . . captures that overwhelming sense of the possible and how daunting and disorientating it can be when the change you craved doesn’t expand your horizons but instead hollows you out." This “luminous” ( The Observer) feminist coming-of-age novel captures in sensuous, blistering prose the richness and imperfection of the bond between a daughter and her mother regarding how Lucy would use the Shard as a landmark to orient herself in the city] "I feel an affinity with the Shard, even though it is a symbol of the wealth and status I am so far removed from."

Definitely. Something I’ve learned is that it’s hard to write about a place when you’re in it. You have to leave somewhere to have perspective. When I was in Ireland I mostly wrote the other sections and when I came to edit, my editor said: “You have hardly any description of Ireland.” A lot of what Lucy’s doing and I have done, is about searching for a home, for that feeling of belonging, but what I’m learning is that actually it’s not [necessarily found] in a place. I would forever be in her orbit, moving towards her and pulling away while she quietly controlled the tides, anchoring me to something.” Insgesamt ist es aber ein schönes, angenehm zu lesendes Buch, das in mir ein bestimmtes Gefühl in der Brust ausgelöst hat. Der Schreibstil ist sehr inspirierend, die Landschaften lösen in mir Kopfkino-Effekt aus. Ja, es wird nicht das gesamte Potenzial ausgeschöpft, aber für mich reicht es hier dennoch für eine kleine Leseempfehlung.

I started and finished this on January 1 and I'm predicting it's going to be my least favorite book of the year. Watch this space in 12 months. The writing was raw, haunting and poetic (even if at times a little purple). Had I read this instead of listen to it I know I would have underlined many many passages. It had the feeling of a memoir rather than a work of fiction. un libro aperto alla speranza: nonostante tutte le sofferenze inflitte da chi doveva prendersi cura di lei, la protagonista, Lucy, ad un certo punto del racconto, non naufraga, ma trova in sé la spinta per rinascere.

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