Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood
Patricia Lockwood's highly anticipated follow-up to No One Is Talking About This is a formal and narrative masterpiece
With an arresting opening sentence, Patricia Lockwood’s Will There Ever Be Another You begins with a woman arriving in Scotland from Chicago with her family, discombobulated by the long flight, and open to the otherworldly and alternative possibilities, whatever their source. What follows is a sparkling, strange, entertaining, yet affecting novel which has a darkness at its heart. There’s pain which, although well-hidden, permeates throughout. It could be read as a collection of short stories, with every chapter individually named and themed. The first, Fairy Pools, is exemplary of the form, and sets the bar high. Then comes The Changeling which raises it. Together they are Part One of three, and they set the rest of the novel beautifully, looking at ill-health, grief, and art through a glass, darkly.
This is a novel where high and low culture meet and get on famously, with references to (among so many others) TV detective Adrian Monk, Iris Murdoch, original Irn-Bru, William Carlos Williams, and Weezer. What unites them is the strength of the narrator’s infatuations and obsessions, and what lies beneath. The novel could be read as a stream of consciousness, with these scattergun, if carefully considered, musings on art in particular an attempt to avoid confronting other, all too real, concerns. A key example is the exquisite chapter which deconstructs Anna Karenina, Mr Tolstoy, You’re Driving Me Mad (a mushroom diary). Literary, artful, funny, and unexpectedly emotional, Will There Ever Be Another You may make you feel it was written just for you.
