Harare Review of Books

304 pages.

Expected publication date: Oct 17, 2023 (Astra Publishing House)

Fiction.

Sometimes you’ll get to the end of a book and realise you never came round to getting it, to working out what it was about. I always label these kinds of books fever dreams, but there really should be a name for the genre.

Nevertheless. This is a novel about Jonathan Abernathy, enslaved through capitalism and student debt. He’s young, and lonely, and insecure, and all of the things that make him an isolated figure in a kind of aimless, untethered life. He’s surrounded by potential connections, though—through his neighbour and her daughter, and other characters that appear. All of that, unfortunately, is ruined by his taking of his one chance at freedom, when he’s promised the end of his debt in exchange for some really shady, nightmare-related business. And that’s my best attempt at summarising the plot.

I liked this novel, even if I found Abernathy exasperating, and I wished he would finish his sentences. I also had no sympathy for the messes he got himself into during the course of the story. But I do understand capitalism, and debt, and the fear that drove him. The nightmare world he worked in was a really nice vehicle for exploring those things.

Thank you to Astra Publishing House and to NetGalley for early access to this unusual and intriguing book.