Ash by Louise Wallace
A volcano becomes an apt stand-in for female rage in this blistering novella by Louise Wallace
Thea lives at the foot of a volcano in Aotearoa New Zealand, enduring the demands of rural motherhood. Her children scream while her husband must be prompted to remember his own mother’s birthday. At her veterinary workplace, misogyny rules despite Thea’s rageful objections. The bleak setting is not merely a dark aesthetic backdrop, but an allegory of a woman 'boiling over', an Earth under too much demand – both 'ready to fly apart and splinter if pushed.'
Ash is split into four sections: before, after, after, and later, as Thea attempts to make sense of her life. Sections of visual poetry intersperse the propulsive narrative of work and family troubles; one section even has a parable running through the footnotes. These more experimental parts offer a closer representation of how motherhood really feels and sounds. The overwhelming repetition of phrases, but also misogynist attitudes in general, create a sense of attrition, reflective of how Thea is continually beaten down and has no escape, like the moths who 'are beating themselves continually against the bulb.'
A dismal exhaustion pervades – 'I can hear the mountain sighing. The mountain is tired too' – although perhaps the brisk ending could be improved by resisting neat conclusion and sitting more with that uncomfortable despair. Through Thea’s individual condition we see a greater crisis of misogyny, one that is both a personal story and a political parable.
