Reviews

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

oliviasbookshop's review against another edition

4.0

I’m glad I stuck with this book despite being intimidated - it was an immersive reading experience and once I got used to the stream of consciousness I enjoyed being inside the narrator’s head. This is a heavy read in terms of subject matter, and half the time I didn’t know where the story was going, but it all paid off in the end. An ambitious undertaking by this author and I believe she succeeded in crafting a unique, challenging, timely novel.

cmvoelkel's review against another edition

1.0

I tired but I just couldn’t do it. I guess this is one of those ‘love it or hate it’ books? Many people rave about it so I was definitely curious but I just couldn’t push through.

chyse's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

onerodeahorse's review against another edition

5.0

The majority of Lucy Ellmann's new novel, which has been longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize and is published by the brilliant Galley Beggar Press, stretches just over 1000 pages, and is made up of a single, long, run-on sentence without full stops. This is the inner monologue, set over several months, of a nameless Ohio housewife who spends her days baking tartes tatin and cinnamon rolls to sell to local businesses. She frets about her four children (Jake, Gillian and Ben - children with her current husband Leo, and Stacy, her eldest daughter from a previous marriage to Frank), about gun violence, about the environment, about the loss of her parents, about television, chemicals, American history, wildlife, her latticing skills, Leo's job as an engineering lecturer, old black and white films, Donald Trump, and a million other tiny anxieties of contemporary life. Through this unending deluge of information the reader gradually pieces together her family history and the forces acting upon it.

But it's not true that the book is "one long sentence", as I've read in other reviews. Every 50 -100 pages or so, the monologue of thoughts is interrupted by the story of a mountain lioness and her cubs, up in the mountains of Ohio. These sections are brief but tell their own story - and of course, as the book draws on, these storylines converge in ways that feel completely satisfying and moving.

Here is an incomplete list of things that I googled while reading Ducks, Newburyport:

- Serpent Mount
- Poffertje
- Lana Turner
- Fanouropita
- Daily Carry
- Swiffer
- PFOA
- Tardigrades
- Gnadenhutten massacre
- Styptic stick
- CONELRAD
- dceaglecam
- Knights of Columbus
- Spanokopita
- All That Heaven Allows
- Resignation Syndrome
- Fallingwater

There's no escaping the fact that this novel is very long and written in a way that will put off a lot of readers. When I think of other books I've read that are like this, some of which I love - big, Serious, Ambitious, Weighty, Massive, Worthy, Literary tomes that seek to present a whole world in totality (I'm thinking about books like Ulysses, Infinite Jest, 2666, The Magic Mountain, Europe Central and more besides), there is something very male about them - they are mostly written by men, and in their systematic, self-conscious Seriousness and Weightiness, they feel very masculine. In this way I think that Ducks, Newburyport is a genuinely important book. While it traces back clearly to Virginia Woolf and James Joyce (though it is more immediately readable than either of them), it dares to write a thousand page stream of consciousness from the POV of a housewife who is mostly baking pies throughout the course of the book. The inner life of an Ohio housewife, the book says, is as important and as capital-M Meaningful a project for properly serious fiction as anything else. For me the very existence of this book is a force for good, and I absolutely loved it.

smay's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It took me several months, but I finally finished Ducks, Newburyport. It was long but definitely worth it. Early on I switched to the audiobook which really helped for me. I started the book during the early days of lockdown and reading the paper copy was a little anxiety-inducing. The audiobook is narrated by Stephanie Elynne who reads with somewhat of a chipper voice which was much nicer than my own for this book. Ducks, Newburyport is not a perfect book. There were plenty of times where my mind wandered off during long lists of brands or associative words that didn't mean anything to me. I'm not sure if all of it was necessary, but I did get really into listening to her thoughts, sometimes tuning out to follow my own train of thought and then getting back in again and not really having missed anything. For me, it felt like the perfect read during a lockdown, even though I kept thinking that the main character would probably have freaked out even more if it took place during this time.

dashmundo's review against another edition

challenging funny reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

macyr's review against another edition

5.0

the fact that I loved this book, the fact that Lucy Ellmann wrote one of the most memorable narrators of the 21st century, the fact that it's just crazee, the book I mean, not the narrator, the fact that the narrator does think she's broken, the fact that I think we're all broken, at least in this country, the fact that the internet broke us, the fact that there's too many facts and even more alternative facts, and even more guns, the fact that the narrator just doesn't think Aurora Borealis is worth all the fuss, the fact that the lioness sequences just about break your heart, the fact that I'm broken, the fact that broken housewives in Ohio are just as important as broken young men in uni or whatever, the fact that not everyone thinks so, the fact that Lucy Ellmann does, and that has made all the difference, the fact that this book will either be a success or a failure, the fact that I think it's a roaring success,

rebeccahussey's review against another edition

5.0

I adore this book. Here's what I wrote about it over at Book Riot before I'd finished: I haven’t finished this one yet, but, in my defense, it’s 1,000+ pages long. I’m loving every single page. Not only is this book very long, but the main narrative is written in one long, stream-of-consciousness, run-on sentence, following the thoughts of a woman living in Ohio. She works as a baker from her home and is raising four children. Her interior monologue is interspersed with short sections from the point of view of a mountain lion. If all this sounds intimidating, let me assure you that the novel is not difficult. The narrator’s thoughts are fascinating, covering Laura Ingalls Wilder, gun control, Trump, climate change, Anne of Green Gables, her children, the pies she spends all day baking, her social anxieties, the everyday objects that fill her life, and so much more. She is funny, reflective, worried, angry, and above all endlessly entertaining. I’m still figuring out how the mountain lion narrative fits in, although she, too, is a mother, and her story surely offers a parallel or contrast to the human account of motherhood. I’m in awe of the ambition of this novel, its range, depth, and inventiveness, and I love that it’s focused on one woman’s thoughts and feelings. More of this, please.

https://bookriot.com/2019/09/19/indie-press-round-up-september-2019/

margedalloway's review against another edition

3.0

I'm actually going to miss having this woman's voice in my head. It feels like someone combined Wittgenstein's Mistress and the Adrienne Rich collection Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, which could have gone very, very badly. Instead I was surprised by how compulsive I found a one sentence, 1,000 page novel; the housewife's inner turmoil makes for a macabre read, both incredibly depressing and very funny, and the prose itself is clear and precise, impressively never tripping over the ambitious one sentence structure. Additionally, I think it's probably one of the stronger attempts to fuse politics and fiction out of the books published this century, carefully arranging the anxieties of contemporary life almost like a mosaic image. I'm not sure if I ever found/thought of an explanation that merits the novel being written as a single sentence, which made it difficult to fully shrug off the "self-indulgent" label I had attached to the novel when I started it. I also think the ending, where

the man who delivers feed for the housewife's chickens; a MAGA hat wearing, racist, misogynistic, creep, bursts into the house with a gun, and the family narrowly escape becoming the victims of type of massacre the housewife spends the other 950 pages of the novel reflecting on

was ill-advised, somewhat shattering the power of the rest of the novel brought by the "everyman" nature of the housewife. I still really enjoyed it overall, and think it was a very strong contender for the Booker (though I do think Evaristo was in a class of her own, no matter what the judges went with), and I hope it will prove a lasting work of fiction.

e_z's review against another edition

challenging reflective tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The fact that H5N1 only has to mutate a few more times and we're all goners, gone, Gone Girl, the fact that Lucy was right to be paranoid, about some things, the police, guns, disease, dis ease, the fact that I've never felt less comfortable in a movie theater than when I saw Something's Gotta Give, Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Doc Martin, House M.D., the fact that I'd never think having seen Something's Gotta Give would come in handy, or that I'd want to see it again, or how come I see movies again but I don't reread books, nooks, nooks & crannies, reading nook, looks, watch, the fact that she watches nature documentaries, and that's what I thought the read sentences were, I got stuck on that, we're stuck, we're all stuck until we can travel again, travel ban, but this time a worthwhile one, until it's gone.