“In our panic, we see the evidence of rural life – a paragraph on the exposed calf, on the woman’s wrist – a landscape.”
Giada Scodellaro’s Ruins, Child (New Directions 2026) was the winner of The Novel Prize, a prize which rewards novels that are innovative and imaginative in form and style. This experimental novel(?) is unlike anything I’ve ever read before. I don’t know what the hell I read, but I liked it. There’s a rhythm and cadence of multiple voices finishing thoughts and moments and lives that sucks the reader, puzzled but along for the ride.
The novel is set maybe in the future in some urban locale in an apartment shared by two sisters that had been left to them by their father. While the novel centers on six characters, I found Vonetta! to be the most memorable even as she lays dying (or giving birth to something she’s been carrying for 40 years) for the present time of the novel. Like I said, I don’t know what is going on.
There’s an earthiness to this despite the urban landscape (one that Von has worked hard to make beautiful as Urban Planner). It’s maternal, of the earth (Burle as the potter), clay to be molded and remolded, stories to be told and retold.
I’d be a fool to say I understand what is going on, but Ruins, Child is alive and probably still morphing into something else.
A Girl Named Tommi 