The Retreat by Alison Moore

Buy it from Bookshop.org and support local booksellers      

This is a deeply unsettling work, alternating between Sandra and Carol’s time on the islands Lieloh and Little Lieloh, separated in time but overlapping in geography.

Sandra has dreamed since childhood about Lieloh and joins an artist retreat there only to find the others fairly causal in their investment in it. What unfolds feels like the all too familiar experience of neurodivergent people in a neurotypical world.

I am not sure if that is Alison Moore’s intent but I connected with it as one of the most authentic description of neurodivergent experience – I felt very seen and the way in which the others view Sandra as aloof is a trap I think I have fallen into more than once.

But there is also a layer of the supernatural going on – things happen in the house in which Carol is alone that can not be explained, similar things happen in the house in which Sandra and the others are staying, and they are explained as acts of passive/not so passive aggression by one side or the other – that there might be a third party in the mix in never considered.

In my reading of it, it is a bleak diagnosis, Sandra stepped out of her life to follow a dream and which only seemed to take her on a downward spiral – that is not what we want to hear – it almost says “stay in your dreary little life it is better than the alternative!”

The back of the book refers to “Moore’s trademark compelling unease”, which is well said, a book that made me uncomfortable and yet I couldn’t put it down.

Boy Friends by Michael Pedersen

Buy it from Bookshop.org and support local booksellers    

This account of Michael Pedersen’s friendship with, and grief for, Scott Hutchinson searches for the vocabulary to speak about male friendship – it is a cliché that men struggle to talk about the emotional bond between them because it is true – and so this is a particular gift. Bringing wit and humour in alongside the raw and painful.

Michael begins by remembering childhood friends that have past in and out of his life as circumstances changed, that some friendships are fleeting does not stop them being intense and having a profound impact on the people we grow up to be.

There is a sense of foreboding as Michael moves on to the account of his and Scott’s friendship, with in the delight of it we know there is a shadow to come.

Rather than try re-articulate the power of the account of grief I will share these quotes...

By the time you were found, hundreds (into thousands) of people were looking for you; I imagine every one of them will have asked things of themselves they would never repeat. I am no different.

I emerge from the crash bleeding, but still loving, still breathing. It’s now a case of survival. That’s what comes next. Living while you don’t is its own arcane act of endurance. I will remind myself every day, there is no shame in having to try this hard to stay afloat. To keep going is a gift. (p139)

Often it feels such extreme emotion should be worn as a sash or garish lanyard, visually obvious in a manner that commands attention… Other times… the idea that people might bear witness to my grief is humiliating and abhorrent. (p1)

People’s expectations of our grief can becomes an acute source of anxiety – when is too soon for a public engagement; can I share my good news; just how candidly can pain be written down then read aloud; should I cancel my birthday party; does this elegy distort someone else’s version of the truth; what about a wedding; just how seriously are you taking this; when is it okay to start laughing again; can I post this sexy-looking selfie? (p192)

Hollywood sweetheart Keanu Reeves said: ‘grief changes shape but never ends’. (p213)