Saltwater: Winner of the Portico Prize

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Before I came to Ireland, I was living in London. I was seduced by coloured lights hitting the river in the middle of the night and throngs of cool girls in chunky sandals who promised a future of tote bags and house plants. I thought that was the kind of life I was supposed to want. I worked in a bar every night while I figured out how to get there. The novel begins with Lucy’s birth, “It begins with our bodies . . . Safe together in the violet dark and yet already there are spaces beginning to open between us.”

A book of breathtaking beauty. Saltwater is a visionary novel with prose that gets deep under your skin. The short, sharp chapters thrum with life. Lucy is a memorable character, her journey one that is moving and totally compelling, telling a series of deep truths about the state of our divided nation. Andrews is a major new voice in contemporary British fiction."

This was so nostalgic for me. So many instances where I saw myself in the narrative. From what Lucy was having for tea, to the what she was wearing to go out. Perhaps if you are not a similar age to me (mid twenties) and didn't grow up in the more Northern areas of the UK, then you might not 'get it'. Its so nice to see the way I grew up written in a novel which seems odd to say but I do feel like my class and childhood era seems rarely represented in UK fiction. I suppose books written by and about my generation are hopefully going to become more popular in time. I would like to have something to believe in, but it is difficult. Everything my generation was promised got blown away like clouds of smoke curling from the ends of cigarettes in the mouths of bankers and politicians. It is hard not to be cynical and critical of everything, and yet perhaps there is an opening, too. When the present begins to fracture, there is room for the future to be written.”

I felt confused by love; the way it could simultaneously trap you and set you free. How it could bring people impossibly close and then push them far away. How people who loved you could leave you when you needed them most.” I am wet and glistening like a beetroot pulsing in soil' (yeah but is beetroot wet when it's in the earth? I'd be pretty worried if it pulsed...) I wrote the book in three separate strands: Lucy’s childhood to university, the Ireland strand, then the body strand. I printed it out, then physically cut it up. My neighbour was away and I had the key to their house in Ireland with a very big kitchen, so I spread the whole thing out on her kitchen floor and made little piles of themes that went together. There were times when I wanted to hear more about the other characters, but then the entire project is devoted to one young woman’s subjectivity. There is little dialogue, but if the interiority can occasionally feel wearing, it is worth it for its refreshing perspective. Lucy feels the acute tension and anxiety that arises between leaving your community and staying. I found parts of this novel intensely moving – I wish I had read it when I was 19. For those who leave, it will be a balm to know they are not alone. For those who stay, Saltwater tells you there is life elsewhere, but that finding it can tear your heart in two.You write forcefully about the body through out the book, particularly about the changes in Lucy’s body from birth through adolescence into adulthood... The brevity of the segments helps to break up the emotional intensity, while stories and anecdotes from Lucy’s upbringing relieve the adolescent angst. This is where the novel shines, in Andrews’s descriptions of Lucy’s friends and family, especially her single mum, her brother, who is born profoundly deaf, and her neighbourhood. Of her grandmother, she writes: “Everything about her was silver; her voice as she sang along to the radio in the mornings, the shiny fish scales caught on her tabard at the end of the day.” In Washington, Sunderland, “Boys at school knew the factory was looming over their future, waiting for them to grow into the overalls.” I have noticed that many of the young men in Donegal have shaking hands. [...] I ask my mother what it is that makes them shake. 'It'll be the drink,' she says, sagely." Ich finde, dass das Buch teilweise ein wenig stringenter auf ein Ziel hätte hinarbeiten können. Teilweise treibt die Protagonistin zu lange nur im Strudel des Lebens, und durchgeht keinen persönlichen Fortschritt. Dadurch bleibt sie dem Lesepublikum lange befremdlich fern. Hier hätte ich mir mehr Mut zum Ausbrechen aus gewohnten Parametern gewünscht, um uns mehr mit auf den Weg zu geben. "Und jetzt bin ich hier" ist oftmals weniger tiefgründig, als es hätte sein können. My favourite ever is Eimear McBride – bodily writing is what I love to read as it speaks to me from a really deep place. People who write about theory in an accessible way – Maggie Nelson, Rebecca Solnit, Claudia Rankine. I love Adrienne Rich’s poetry. I experience the world in a visceral, bodily way... it’s partly linked to gender

The timeline jumps around a lot but I never lost the essence of what the author wanted to convey. The chapters are also very very short but I soon got used to it. This book comes lauded with acclaim about its freshness, voice and vision - but, you know, it's just that old, old story of a girl struggling to become an adult and to find her place in the world. There can still be mileage in this theme but this book hits all the predictable milestones : wayward bodies, boys, sex, struggling not to be objectified, pigeon-holed by class and accent, the push-pull of mother-daughter relationships, wanting to be separate and individual while wanting to belong. The memories are not only limited to herself. There’s also segments involving Lucy’s grandmother, and her mother meeting and fallout with her father, various boyfriends and her brother’s partial deafness, I want it and I do not want it. I want to be visible and I want to be invisible, or perhaps I want to be visible to some people and not to others.” There are elements of this that reminded me of the writing of Sara Baume, an Irish author that I love. The introspective nature of this, the more often than not internal dialogue that presents an almost enveloping feeling of solitude, and the simple, gorgeous prose made for a very moving, beautifully shared story about the complex nature of mothers and daughters, gathering the internal strength through our memories, allowing others to see us, as well.The writing was raw, haunting and poetic (even if at times a little purple). Had I read this instead of listen to it I know I would have underlined many many passages. It had the feeling of a memoir rather than a work of fiction. I sent a couple of these select quotes to a friend who asked if the book was written by a random word generator. I thought that was so spot-on I told him I was going to steal that line for my review.)