M.J. Hyland's This is How appears slight, almost uneventful, the protagonist awkward, which might not sound promising... but it is affecting and lingers. The claustrophobia of the common place, telling details. Hard to describe. It is very good.
I hadn't read any of her work until I'd seen her brave and clear-eyed piece in the Guardian about MS and brain enhancers, in which she wrote 'In the stuffy, darkened house of my head, all the windows and doors seemed to have been flung open and the air was crisp and cool'.
The highlights:
‘Let me take your coat,’ she says. ‘I’m not bothered,’ I say. ‘I’ll keep it on.’ I want the pockets for my hands. [Location 46]
There’s an old man sitting at the bar. He’s got a lit cigarette in the ashtray, but he lights another and I get why he craves the start of things. All the hope that goes with the new thing. [Location 266]
It’s like something from James Bond.’ ‘Do you like those films?’ ‘I haven’t seen From Russia with Love yet, but I liked Dr No. Have you read the books?’ The chat flows easily and I don’t even lie to her and tell her I’ve read the books. [Location 1966]
Welkin’s not in the room but he might as well be. We’re in the company of his absence. [Location 2067]
I step forward, lift the wrench in my right hand and bring it down. Only once, a good, certain blow to his temple, not heavy, and the wrench bounces. [Location 2203]
My hands are numb, a tingling in my fingers, much stronger than pins and needles. [Location 2224]
the drink machine’s out of order. There’s a handwritten sign on the front and the word THIS has been crossed out and someone’s replaced it with the word TIME. It says: TIME MACHINE IS OUT OF ORDER and I stare at it for a while before I know what it means and I’ve got a sickness in my gut. [Location 2257]
A heat goes down the front of my body and it’s as though I’m standing by a fire, the heat of shock, and it spreads all over my chest and head. [Location 2280]
I take a tissue out of my pocket. He looks away, waits a bit, looks back. ‘Okay?’ he says. He takes off his jacket and hands it over. ‘Thanks.’ [Location 2444]
During the long cold night, when I sank into sleep, it was short and shallow and I saw what I did to Welkin, saw it over and over, and I was in a stupor so close to screaming that I went in the dark and slammed my fist on the cell door. [Location 2607]
The windows are blacked and nobody can see me, but the people on the street waiting to cross at the lights, all of them look at the van with faces full of hate. I close my eyes. [Location 2729]
‘You’d better get yourself a dog face,’ says Stevenson. [Location 2968]
‘Here comes the snout-baron,’ [Location 2985]
what I did adds up to no more than the act of raising and lowering a hand. My mind played hardly any part, but my body acted and, as far as the law’s concerned, my body might as well be all that I am. [Location 3045]
he’s moving documents in and out of his black folders as though he hopes that moving them will erase what’s there and replace his watery words with better ones. [Location 3756]
Perkins speaks now as though he has a pen between his teeth. [Location 4046]
This blow is like a dose of poison in my veins, a hot sharp shot through my legs and arms, through my bowels and bladder. I’ve a mind to release a hot flood of shit and piss right where I sit. [Location 4809]
But then, after a long gap, the silence between us starts to cover me, almost like being touched. The longer the stretch of silence, the more it feels like we’re touching each other. [Location 5372]
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