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jennyyates 's review for:
Everything Under
by Daisy Johnson
This is a very compelling novel. It has an ancient, spiraling shape, with chapters alternatively titled “The Cottage”, “The River” and “The Hunt”. It tells an old, archetypal story, but with great intimacy and immediacy.
The main narrator is Gretel, a woman who was raised on a boat with her strange, feral mother, Sarah. Gretel has been looking for her mother for decades, ever since she was abandoned as a teenager. The story fills in gradually, moving back and forth between Gretel’s childhood, her hunt for Sarah, and their current, careful interactions, as they live together in a cottage.
The second narrator is Marcus, linked mysteriously but inexorably to Gretel and her mother. As Gretel searches for her mother, she also tries to find Marcus. She locates his family, who have been mourning him and searching for him since he ran away – although they knew him as a girl, Margot. She finds the transsexual soothsayer, Fiona, and woos her until she tells the truth about what she saw in Margot’s future. And intermittently with the search for Marcus, we also hear Marcus’ story.
The scenes on the river, when Gretel is a child, are particularly haunting. Sarah, Gretel and Marcus have their own language, shared by no one else, strange and beautiful. And they have their own monster, the Borak, who terrorizes them from under the water’s surface. As frightening as the river can be, none of the three can escape it.
The main narrator is Gretel, a woman who was raised on a boat with her strange, feral mother, Sarah. Gretel has been looking for her mother for decades, ever since she was abandoned as a teenager. The story fills in gradually, moving back and forth between Gretel’s childhood, her hunt for Sarah, and their current, careful interactions, as they live together in a cottage.
The second narrator is Marcus, linked mysteriously but inexorably to Gretel and her mother. As Gretel searches for her mother, she also tries to find Marcus. She locates his family, who have been mourning him and searching for him since he ran away – although they knew him as a girl, Margot. She finds the transsexual soothsayer, Fiona, and woos her until she tells the truth about what she saw in Margot’s future. And intermittently with the search for Marcus, we also hear Marcus’ story.
The scenes on the river, when Gretel is a child, are particularly haunting. Sarah, Gretel and Marcus have their own language, shared by no one else, strange and beautiful. And they have their own monster, the Borak, who terrorizes them from under the water’s surface. As frightening as the river can be, none of the three can escape it.