"Disappearing Earth"

[fiefoe]

Julia Phillips

Wouldn't have been my pick (debut novel/disjointed stories a la "The Goon Squad") but was surprisingly OK. It was a collection of accomplished character studies of unhappy females set in a most remote geography. Thankfully it has a somewhat optimistic ending, even though it didn't quite deliver the 'everything comes together' promise.

• She was not a woman made for sitting home and nursing. She craved things darker, stranger, out of bounds.
• Everyone looked better at a distance. Everyone sounded sweetest when you did not have to hear them talk too long.
• Loving someone close-up - that was difficult.
• Books, buckles, papers, and scarves. After Gleb's accident, she thought she would die. She thought she had. This date took him and pulled her down after, grief determined gravity. But now she would live. She had to. It was what she did: live while others could not. There was no pleasure in it.
• You believe that you keep yourself safe, she thought. You lock up your mind and guard your reactions so nobody, not an interrogator or a parent or a friend, will break in. You earn a graduate degree and a good position. You keep your savings in foreign currency and you pay your bills on time. When your colleagues ask you about your home life, you don't answer. You work harder. You exercise. Your clothing flatters. You keep the edge of your affection sharp, a knife, so that those near you know how to handle it carefully. You think you established some protection and then you discover that you endangered yourself to everyone you ever met.