“November brought the trouble.”
In continuing with the rather lackluster 2023 Booker Prize longlist, I read Sarah Bernstein’s Study for Obedience (Knopf 2023). The novel was shortlisted for the prize, and the winner will be announced in a few weeks. (I’m still rooting for Western Lane.) While Berstein’s slim offering is well-written and interesting, it just not the type of novel that floats my boat.
Channeling Shirley Jackson, Bernstein weaves a gothic horror that is as unsettling as it is unassuming. An unnamed female narrator has gone to a country from which her ancestors were forced to flee to assist her oldest brother after his wife and children have left him. (Based on the breed of dog being a Carpathian Shepherd, it’s likely Romania.) She stresses that her entire life has been that of obedience to those around her – her siblings, her coworkers, etc. She is an unreliable narrator who I thought for a bit was actually death or the devil, but the reader gets snippets of what her life was like and why thoughts of dying are always on her mind.
Despite the country being a homeland for her and her family, she is an outsider, and the locals are suspicious of her. Since her arrival, bad things have been happening, and they blame her for them. It’s an interesting depiction of antisemitism laced with survivor’s guilt and generational trauma. There are also some interesting things that happen relating to the brother, and this is supposed to be his story. In quick snippets, our narrator tells us the trouble he got in as a teen involving videos taken of young girls who did not consent. She also hints at the liberties he took with her, including forcing her to undress in front of him her entire life.
The sinister nature of the novel reveals itself fully as the narrator begins to “care” for her ailing brother; the sicker he gets, the more powerful and self-assured she becomes. I had no clue what the novel was about, but the dead bird on the cover should have warned me. It is the most “different” book on the 2023 longlist that I’ve read to date, but it still oozes Booker type.
If you like gothic horror on a meta fiction level, give it a read.
Booker count: 8 of 13.
A Girl Named Tommi 