Ducks, Newburyport

by Lucy Ellmann

WINNER OF THE 2019 GOLDSMITHS PRIZE - SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 BOOKER PRIZE - A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2019 - A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019 - A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF 2019

"This book has its face pressed up against the pane of the present; its form mimics the way our minds move now toggling between tabs, between the needs of small children and aging parents, between news of ecological collapse and school shootings while somehow remembering to pay taxes and fold the laundry."--Parul Sehgal, New York Times

Baking a multitude of tartes tatins for local restaurants, an Ohio housewife contemplates her four kids, husband, cats and chickens. Also, America's ignoble past, and her own regrets. She is surrounded by dead lakes, fake facts, Open Carry maniacs, and oodles of online advice about survivalism, veil toss duties, and how to be more like Jane Fonda. But what do you do when you keep stepping on your son's toy tractors, your life depends on stolen land and broken treaties, and nobody helps you when you get a flat tire on the interstate, not even the Abominable Snowman? When are you allowed to start swearing?

With a torrent of consciousness and an intoxicating coziness, Ducks, Newburyport lays out a whole world for you to tramp around in, by turns frightening and funny. A heart-rending indictment of America's barbarity, and a lament for the way we are blundering into environmental disaster, this book is both heresy and a revolution in the novel.

• ISBN13: 9781771963077
• Publish Date: 24 October 2019 (first published 4 July 2019)
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Publish Country: CA
• Imprint: Biblioasis
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 1040
• Language: English

Reviews

[clementine]

A fascinating novel that confronts and challenges normative modes of novel consumption, both intellectually and physically. (It's hard to hold such a large book! It's hard to know when to stop reading!) Ellmann holds nothing back in her exploration of modern American culture, weaving in ideas of grief, domesticity, the instability and polarization of contemporary America, environmental disaster, gun violence, nostalgia, motherhood, family... The one-sentence, stream-of-consciousness framing, rather than being gimmicky, is a strangely accurate literary approximation of human thought processes, making use of association, digression, and non-linear patterns of thought. There's a lot of attention paid to the domestic space - as a site of repression, comfort, and even terror. The narrator's interest in film is fascinating - it can be read as a desire to inject glamour and structured narrative into a repetitive, banal existence. When considering film's long association with the public domain, it's an interesting contrast with the domestic setting of the novel. The narrator also has a deep nostalgia for American cultural texts of the past, constantly invoking old Hollywood films and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Here is a longing to return to perceived simpler times, especially in the face of the complexities and anxieties of Trump's America. (This also reflects the narrator's constant return to her painful past, particularly to the unresolved loss of her mother.) Our nostalgic, innocent, loving, family-oriented narrator represents a moral compass that has largely been lost. This is a thoroughly modern novel that meticulously captures an era of American (and global) history. It's a difficult text, but well worth the time, effort, and attention it demands.