Book Review
Title: Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
Genre: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Rating: 3.25 Stars
I didn’t know anything about this book before getting into it other than it focuses on a mother/daughter relationship. From the very beginning, the writing style cements this as literary fiction as it is written in a style between narration and stream of consciousness. We are introduced to the main character, Gretel who has been searching for her mother for nearly sixteen years after she abandoned her. Gretel has spent years phoning hospitals and morgues only to happen across her mother it seems but she has dementia or something similar. Despite this Gretel wants answers as to why her mother abandoned her and what really happened when she was a teen because her memories seem to be distorted or unclear about the actual sequence of events.
From here Gretel narrates a story that bounces between past and present but it also introduces several other characters as we don’t really know how they play into the story just yet. Gretel grew up on a riverboat with her mother and a man named Charlie who might be or might not be her father. Within the past segments she discusses the troubled relationship she had with her mother, presumably because she never wanted to be a parent, thinking herself incapable but ending up with her daughter. Her mother claims they left the river because they were being haunted or stalked by something she refers to as the Bonak, which Gretel also remembers but doesn’t really believe in it anymore. Through her we learn about Charlie who still lives on his boat but he is blind now and he ends up meeting Margot who introduces herself as Marcus who is someone Gretel has also been looking for years. It is hard to tell without being told what is happening when but there are some context clues we can use to determine this. Other than trying to get answers out of her mother who may or may not be real about her past, we also learn that Gretel is a cynical person who harbours a lot of anger towards her mother and has become isolated from the rest of the world seemingly by choice but doesn’t really enjoy it.
The further we get into this book we see that all these characters are linked and some are searching for each other. For example, Charlie is linked to Gretel and her mother and he is searching for his child while Gretel is searching for her mother. Marcus is an FtM individual who has left home and developed a friendship with the now blind Charlie while Gretel has tracked down Marcus’s parents. It king of reads like The Glass Hotel where nothing seems to make sense until the very end and I think this might be the same thing but it might not have a definitive ending. While I don’t really understand what is going on there is something so compelling about the writing style that I am continuing despite being thoroughly confused about literally everything. I do have some theories but nothing that fit together perfectly just yet.
As the halfway mark approached I was wondering again what point the book serves, especially the Bonak at first I thought it might be real since the book is labelled as magical realism but I am more inclined to believe that it is a manifestation of the character’s repressed emotions, specifically anger. For example, Gretel is angry with her mother for abandoning her, her mother was angry with Gretel and Charlie for giving her a child when she didn’t want one, Marcus is angry potentially with his parents and Fiona and Charlie is angry at Sarah for taking his child away and the Bonak might be the physical manifestation of that. That being said it doesn’t explain why these characters are always on the move either running from or hunting this creature if it isn’t real and there are folk tales about it. So far I think the most compelling story line belongs to Sarah, who raised a child she didn’t want, took that child from a potential dangerous environment on the river and did unspeakable things to raise her despite abandoning her when she was old enough to look after herself. Her struggle with dementia and her frustration at not remembering things and not being able to express herself really broke my heart and yet I understand Gretel’s anger with her mother especially when the time she is able to get answers out of her is running out with each passing day.
By the end of the book everything does make sense but it leaves a horrible taste in your mouth, when you realise what Sarah did and why she kept it a secret until she was physically unable to any longer. Finding out how Gretel, Marcus, Charlie and Sarah all tie together was honestly heart-breaking and how their lives played out was even worse especially when characters like Marcus were actively trying to avoid their fate only to walk right into it. The way the story ended left me so stunned that I had to sleep on it before writing my review which is something I hardly ever need to do. Overall, I think Everything Under was worth the read but you have to ride out the confusion to see the point of the book in the end much like The Glass Hotel but it does deal with some extremely dark themes so do check out some trigger warnings before going into it.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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