Yes, it’s ridiculous that I still have reviews for Novellas in November outstanding…

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

It’s been a very long time since I read any Tyler – in my mind, her books are all a bit similar, a bit formulaic. Anyway, I listened to an audio of Three Days in June – a story about a middle-aged woman, her ex-husband, and their daughter’s wedding.

The tight focus on the wedding and all that comes with traditional vows, created a platform for some important flashbacks for the protagonist, and through these flashbacks, Tyler explores themes of loyalty and the meaning of commitment.

Although the story is a little predictable, there were some surprisingly funny moments, and the characters had depth and relatable flaws. Tyler tells a rich story in a novella length book.

3/5

Shame by Annie Ernaux (translated by Tanya Leslie)

‘My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon.’ And so begins Ernaux’s memoir, describing how this traumatic memory from when she was twelve-years-old, reverberates throughout her life.

Ernaux’s story is a powerful reminder that the significance of an event varies between people. Could it be that twelve-year-old Annie had failed to understand something in her parents’ argument? That they repaired the rupture within minutes or hours, unbeknownst to Annie? That her parents have no recollection of this ever having happened? Perhaps. But the fear that Annie felt in that moment stayed with her, and for years, she anticipated a repeat of the scene. When she’d see her parents showing affection for each other, she ‘…realized that these signs only meant something at the time; they offered no guarantee for the future.’

…now that I have finally committed it to paper, I feel that it is an ordinary incident, far more common among families that I had originally thought. It may be that narrative, any kind of narrative, lends normality to people’s deeds, including the most dramatic ones.

Interesting in the context of shame. From my counselling perspective, shame ‘lives in the dark’ and traps us, meaning that when we keep something hidden, the feeling of shame grows. The things a person feels ashamed about, are the things they’ll protect the most… and yet, the only way to tackle shame (which is an awful, destructive feeling), is to put it in the light.

The worst thing about shame is that we imagine we are the only ones to experience it.

and

This can be said about shame: those who experience it feel that anything can happen to them, that the shame will never cease and that it wll only be followed by more shame.

Although I wasn’t fully immersed while reading this memoir, I have thought a lot about it since.

3/5

People with No Charisma by Jente Posthuma, Sarah Timmer Harvey (Translator)

The unnamed narrator grows up overshadowed by her unconventional mother, an ex-Jehovah’s witness and former television star with an inferiority complex. Her father is the head of a psychiatric institution, whose only form of parenting is to offer his daughter the same life advice he dispenses to his patients. When her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she begins to address their generational trauma and forge a new relationship with her father.

There are twelve episodic chapters in this novella, each named for an absurd and random moment (‘The Pyromaniac and His Labrador’; The Best Years of My Bum’; ‘Not Quite Traumatic’), and while the scene encapsulated in each chapter appears straightforward, complex themes provide links – the experience of trauma, grief, and the significance of family expectations.

What I most enjoyed about this story is the evolution of the narrator’s relationship with her father after her mother’s diagnosis and death. It made me think about families who have one ‘big personality’ and the cost of that – does it make or break the others?

Sign me up for more from Posthuma – her wry, dark humour is exactly my thing, and her characters are exquisitely poignant.

I also spent far too much time lying in bed, my head was too small for my body, and I put too much mayonnaise on everything I ate. Meanwhile, I wasn’t doing any writing.

…he’d said that no one was softer than me. Now Bob was the softest. When we had nothing else to do, we’d each grab one of Bob’s legs and gently squeeze it.

4/5