A debut novel tightly wound around the narratives that women weave to make sense of their lives. The book follows conversations that the unnamed narrator has with other women - on the feminist guilt in enjoying rough sex and male dominance; on Freudian trajectories used to justify inaction; on the many subtle ways in which women indicate marital dissatisfaction. The narrator speaks intimately both with women who tell crass, ugly stories and with women who craft beautiful, romantic ones and there is an excitement in this divulging - ‘There is, below the surface of every conversation in which intimacies are shared, an erotic current.‘ Despite its loose structure, character growth is apparent over the course of the novel. The narrator matures out of narratives to a woman who in motherhood realises that ‘my life, like the lives of most people, lacks an origin story. I mean one with any explanatory power. Which means that my son could turn out any way and for any reason or for no reason at all. I’m not sure if it’s irony but here it is, at last I’ve found the thing I do want to control, and of course I can’t.’ The book is sometimes difficult to read because its stream of consciousness style has a tenuous relationship with punctuation, but I found it insightful and impressive nonetheless.

Made up of a series of conversations between women (but in which men play major, generally negative parts), this is a compelling and raw depiction of a life and lives. Lots to admire, both in the skill of the writing and the power of the stories told, which have an immediacy which makes other autobiographical fictions seem mannered and polite in comparison. I could have done without the Norman Mailer section in the middle of the book and the version I read lacked the location/date headings referred to at the end, which would might have helped anchor the stories, but there is lots here to wince at and particularly admire, not least the closing "works (not) cited" section.

I’m afraid I didn’t enjoy this book. It felt rather self-conscious to me, and lacked depth. Maybe this was the structure of the conversational style, which leant the book a detached air. I didn’t care about the MC at all as a result of this.

When I finished the book I looked back at the blurb and was surprised to find it was set over 20 years. I didn’t get that in the book, and indeed, it felt more like all of the stories were from a 20 year old’s perspective.

I would compare this book to a Three Women, which I know a lot of people loved, so if you liked that you’ll enjoy this.

This novel is made up of conversations between women - mothers, daughters, friends - over a number of years.
The conversations span topics as diverse as desire, sexuality, motherhood and marriage and divorce.
It reads like stream of consciousness but is well-structured and beautifully crafted: you feel you are listening - a fly on the wall - to real dialogue.
The narrator pieces together her life through these conversations and they feel more like short stories or diary entries than a novel.
This novel will not be everyone’s cup of tea because of this unusual structure but it is clever and darkly funny and always devastatingly honest.

A really sharp, poignant novel that spans over fifteen years and emphasize on the unnamed narrator's examination of her life through her or other people's stories. Brutally honest, gripping and fun read.