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A review by adrianasturalvarez
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
5.0
"...the fact that there's no end to how little I know about the moon, even though there it is every night, just waiting to be understood"
I took me until around page 100 to get my bearings and ease into the cadence of prose but once I got into it I was hooked. This is a very addictive read. Addictive in a way I haven't experienced with other novels. The main story is told in clauses chained together by the phrase "the fact that," which acts as a unique pause. Unique because it both acts as a comma, letting the reader rest a moment before moving on to the next idea, but it is also quite active, "the fact that" is a kind of list propelling the reader forward toward whatever controlling notion the author is getting at. It moves. Once you arrive at the conclusion of the sentence, the idea all of these "the fact thats" have been building towards, the novel ends. I won't spoil here but the ending of the sentence is hilarious.
"...the fact that I have another terror too, if I'm honest, a terror that I'll wake up one day and everyone will have suddenly changed their minds about me, or about mothers, or pie, and I won't know about it because nobody kept me in the loop..."
So while the style and length of Ducks, Newburyport are sure to dominate much of the discussion surrounding the novel, and while I think both of those aspects are significant, they are really just a means to an end. This novel couldn't have been written any other way because it is about the consciousness of a character living in 2019. I had the incredible sensation of being synced up with another mind as I was reading for long stretches at a time. The rhythms infected my daily life. I found myself thinking in "the fact thats." It is so easy to do. So much of my lived experience, if I'm paying enough attention to notice, is sorting through various pieces of information, like scrolling through a twitter feed and taking in bits of horrifying news or advertisements or sage snippets of wisdom. The protagonist's stream of consciousness is so very relatable and the experience of reading an author who gives her character enough space to emerge as fully formed and dynamic using only this stream of thought technique is inspiring because you really do get to know this character in ways that are more intimate and lovely than you would any other way.
"For all of life is really recoil and leap, leap and recoil."
So the novel tracks the consciousness of a single character but it also tells a parallel story, in standard prose, of a lioness as she experiences an adventurous tale of her own. The lioness subplot involves moments of high action you could find in a Hollywood blockbuster. It's incredible, really. On the one hand you have this daring, literary experiment with stream of consciousness and rather intellectual ideas about time and identity but then you get multiple moments of action and adventure (disasters! guns! explosions! fights!) set on a backdrop of imagery that at times feels like it could be from a Fellini film and none of this ever feels out of place. Take this as proof, if you needed some, that Ellmann is not interested in navel gazing. This is a novel about living in the world but also about the world itself.
"...the fact that you mostly try not to know anything about goiters, the fact that maybe that's the meaning of life, avoiding goiter talk, but maybe we should talk about goiters more, the fact that I think this is why everybody's so scared of goiters, because we all think they can't be removed, but if they can be, that changes everything, a little anyway, but on the other hand, if they can be removed, why don't they just remove them, and then we'd never have to hear about goiters again, the fact that nobody would keep their goiter longer than necessary, surely, but maybe it's tricky to remove them too soon or something, like cataracts, the fact that maybe they wait for the goiter to get good and big before they attempt an operation, hhhhuuuge, oh, dear me, gosh..."
I loved this novel. I'm going to miss it. It made me laugh. It moved me to tears. I was gripped in its moments of suspense. Quite simply, I fell in love with the main character: her flaws, her goofy thoughts, her life's tragedies, and moments of victory. Yes, this is a lengthy novel but it really does read well, and yes, it employs an extreme style of prose but it never feels overwhelming and it certainly never bogs down into subjective madness. As significant as this novel is (and I do feel this is a significant work) it is a pleasure to read. A hhhuuuge thank you to Galley Beggar press for the advanced copy.
I took me until around page 100 to get my bearings and ease into the cadence of prose but once I got into it I was hooked. This is a very addictive read. Addictive in a way I haven't experienced with other novels. The main story is told in clauses chained together by the phrase "the fact that," which acts as a unique pause. Unique because it both acts as a comma, letting the reader rest a moment before moving on to the next idea, but it is also quite active, "the fact that" is a kind of list propelling the reader forward toward whatever controlling notion the author is getting at. It moves. Once you arrive at the conclusion of the sentence, the idea all of these "the fact thats" have been building towards, the novel ends. I won't spoil here but the ending of the sentence is hilarious.
"...the fact that I have another terror too, if I'm honest, a terror that I'll wake up one day and everyone will have suddenly changed their minds about me, or about mothers, or pie, and I won't know about it because nobody kept me in the loop..."
So while the style and length of Ducks, Newburyport are sure to dominate much of the discussion surrounding the novel, and while I think both of those aspects are significant, they are really just a means to an end. This novel couldn't have been written any other way because it is about the consciousness of a character living in 2019. I had the incredible sensation of being synced up with another mind as I was reading for long stretches at a time. The rhythms infected my daily life. I found myself thinking in "the fact thats." It is so easy to do. So much of my lived experience, if I'm paying enough attention to notice, is sorting through various pieces of information, like scrolling through a twitter feed and taking in bits of horrifying news or advertisements or sage snippets of wisdom. The protagonist's stream of consciousness is so very relatable and the experience of reading an author who gives her character enough space to emerge as fully formed and dynamic using only this stream of thought technique is inspiring because you really do get to know this character in ways that are more intimate and lovely than you would any other way.
"For all of life is really recoil and leap, leap and recoil."
So the novel tracks the consciousness of a single character but it also tells a parallel story, in standard prose, of a lioness as she experiences an adventurous tale of her own. The lioness subplot involves moments of high action you could find in a Hollywood blockbuster. It's incredible, really. On the one hand you have this daring, literary experiment with stream of consciousness and rather intellectual ideas about time and identity but then you get multiple moments of action and adventure (disasters! guns! explosions! fights!) set on a backdrop of imagery that at times feels like it could be from a Fellini film and none of this ever feels out of place. Take this as proof, if you needed some, that Ellmann is not interested in navel gazing. This is a novel about living in the world but also about the world itself.
"...the fact that you mostly try not to know anything about goiters, the fact that maybe that's the meaning of life, avoiding goiter talk, but maybe we should talk about goiters more, the fact that I think this is why everybody's so scared of goiters, because we all think they can't be removed, but if they can be, that changes everything, a little anyway, but on the other hand, if they can be removed, why don't they just remove them, and then we'd never have to hear about goiters again, the fact that nobody would keep their goiter longer than necessary, surely, but maybe it's tricky to remove them too soon or something, like cataracts, the fact that maybe they wait for the goiter to get good and big before they attempt an operation, hhhhuuuge, oh, dear me, gosh..."
I loved this novel. I'm going to miss it. It made me laugh. It moved me to tears. I was gripped in its moments of suspense. Quite simply, I fell in love with the main character: her flaws, her goofy thoughts, her life's tragedies, and moments of victory. Yes, this is a lengthy novel but it really does read well, and yes, it employs an extreme style of prose but it never feels overwhelming and it certainly never bogs down into subjective madness. As significant as this novel is (and I do feel this is a significant work) it is a pleasure to read. A hhhuuuge thank you to Galley Beggar press for the advanced copy.