Ducks, Newburyport

by Lucy Ellmann

[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.