The Voids by Ryan O'Connor
The Voids is a portrait of the city, the margins of society, and of a young man, that captures the wealth to be found in perceived emptiness
The Voids is a book characterised by absence. Beginning in a condemned tower block in Glasgow, a young man is watching the home surrounding him slowly ebb away – the smells of neighbours’ food no longer float through the building, the joy of children playing in the halls' silences. He explores these voids, finding remnants of the lives that previously filled the building.
Facing the surrealness of life, and contending with the angels and devils of his mind, readers follow as the past is broken down for something new: “It’s supposed to be [good]. But it isn’t, not really. It’s like a trick, an illusion.” He enters and leaves people’s lives, he lacks purpose at times, other times the will to act – the final notices pile up.
In the more literal voids blossoms a heft of feeling – in its darkness, there’s laughter; as each chapter ends, there’s an emotional weight left with the reader. The people who pass through his life, whether fleeting loves, those who hold his fate in their hands, or reconnecting with parents, each unveil a complexity of questions and layers about who he has been, who he is, and could be.
The Voids is a portrait of the city, the margins of society, and of a young man, that captures the wealth to be found in perceived emptiness. As the skylines change, so too does life – disturbing and dizzying, it’s an engulfing read.