Sarah O'Connor

“Which is better?…The grief of death of the ambiguity of indefinite loss?” (Wallace 76).

In the small town of Euphoria a suburban couple, Blue and Culver, have disappeared, but only their estranged friend Fir seems to care. Without any help from the police, Fir enlists the help of their friend Fain as they begin their search. But the answers are hidden in the mysterious Unwood where Slip, an elderly trailer park resident, finds a cluster of bones and decides it is their job to find the bones a better resting spot. Meanwhile, two true-crime obsessed teens Limb and Mal have seen the bones in Slip’s trailer and are determined to crack the case.

I went to the book launch of Anomia and so I was more than excited to find my library had finally procured a copy. I loved hearing Wallace read the first chapter at the event, but I was most curious about how the book could be written without reference to gender or sex. I could understand in some areas how this could be done but not in others so I was curious to see what reading this book would be like. The answer of course is that it wasn’t that hard a task. This is not to discredit Wallace at all, I’m sure there was a lot of care and editing involved to make sure the references to sex and gender weren’t present. It’s such an ingrained part of our brains, but Wallace makes it look effortless. Parent over mom or dad, sibling over brother or sister, child over son or daughter. It felt very much like Wallace was saying, “See, writing a book without referencing gender or sex isn’t impossible. What’s your excuse?” and I loved that! 

You can also see Wallace’s poetic side coming out. The descriptions in the novel are beautiful, and like any good poet we’re going to see some gorgeous words I’ve never heard of before but am quickly adding to my lexicon. Avoirdupois is a new favourite of mine now!

I also loved the different voices of the characters. I thought Slip was fascinating and could never quite figure them out and loved every moment of dialogue between Fir and Fain. Limn and Mal had a great dynamic, and I loved the peaks into Blue and Culver’s lives where reader’s get a glimpse into what their marriage was like but always remain outside of what happened to them in the end.

Anomia is a masterful novel. I think the most interesting thing that will come out of discussions with this book is the way readers will inevitably gender the characters and what reasons they may give for gendering them in such ways. I love Wallace’s writing style and voice and can’t wait to read more of their work!

Publication: June 15 2024
Publisher: Palimpsest Press
Pages: 280 pages (Paperback)
Source: Playwrights Canada Press
Genre: Fiction,  Canada, LGTBQ2S+, Mystery, Literary
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤
Summary:

In Euphoria, a small, fictional town that feels displaced in time and space, an affluent but isolated couple have vanished from their suburban home. Their estranged friend, Fir, a local video store employee, is the only person who notices their disappearance. When the police refuse to help, Fir recruits Fain, who moonlights as a security guard, and they set off on a seemingly hopeless search for the lost lovers. Their chance at an answer, if they can ever find it, lies on the wooded edge of Euphoria, where Slip, an elderly trailer park resident, finds a scattering of bones that cannot be identified. Distrusting everyone, Slip undertakes a would-be solitary quest to discover the bones’ identity. Yet secretly, Limn and Mal, two bored, true crime-loving teenagers from the trailer park, are dogging Slip. Determined to bring justice to the dead, Limn and Mal will instead bring the lives of all seven characters into fraught and tangled confrontation.
Beneath the familiar surface of this missing-persons novel lies an unparalleled experiment: the creation of a folkloric alternate reality where sex and gender have been forgotten. Expanding on the work of Anne Garréta’s Sphinx and Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body, and joining gender-confronting contemporaries like Joshua Whitehead’s Jonny Appleseed and Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji, Anomia is an atmospheric exploration of a possible world, and a possible language, existing without reference to sex or gender.