April 15, 2024
A woman convalescing from an operation considers her relationship to her body, in Australian writer Brabon’s meditative U.S. debut. The unnamed narrator, a 20-something graduate student with an unspecified autoimmune disease, has a hip replacement to help her mobility. During hydrotherapy for her recovery, she meets Frida, a woman who is coping with a similar diagnosis, and sees herself in her new friend (“It was sufficient to be a body in pain and to know that about one another”). She begins meeting daily with Frida to swim, pleased with how the water makes movement easier. During a flare-up of her condition, however, she skips swimming and goes to the park. There, she meets Sylvia, another person with chronic pain. In contrast to Frida, Sylvia seems sullen and discourages movement in favor of silent rest. Over the next weeks, the narrator moves between these two extremes, torn between Frida’s rejection of limits and her “soul-level alignment” with Sylvia. The novel’s emotional core is heated by lyrical musings on the body and its relationship to language and narrative (“Often we deny the body its story. We don’t believe it or we ignore it, because the body does not use words”). This is an illuminating reflection on what it means to live with pain. Agent: Mary Krienke, Sterling Lord Literistic.
July 25, 2023
Katherine Brabon distinguished herself with her first novels, The Memory Artist and The Shut Ins, but she has surpassed these and reached an early career pinnacle with her enigmatically titled novel, Body Friend. If a novel about living with chronic illness sounds off-putting, do not be deterred. Body Friend is a sculptured, sensory reflection on pain told by an unnamed narrator about her suffering from an autoimmune disease. Her difficulties in trying to live a normal life are compounded by the disease’s invisibility. She has recently moved into an apartment with a balcony, a redolent liminal space, with Tomasz, her steadfast, energetic boyfriend, but the author unnerves us with hints that he may leave because of her debilitation. The narrator meets two doppelgangers, women who look like her and with whom her body and routines align. Strong Frida urges her to overcome weakness and exert herself in the pool. They form a ‘miraculous friendship’. Like the narrator, passive, sedentary Sylvia has swollen joints and encourages her to rest. We begin to question the motivations of these women. The narrator is a writer who values ‘story’, but her illness skews the narrative she wants to tell. The plot unfolds artfully and with precision to surprise and exceed readers’ expectations. Recommended for discerning readers of nuanced fiction such as Erin Hortle’s The Octopus and I, Madelaine Lucas’s Thirst for Salt and Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss.