Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett
“Communing with the dark, in all its primordial and transformative potency, is somewhat unsettling, certainly. But who on earth wants to keep their feet on the ground on and on?”
Going into the book knowing that it’s unconventional keeps me holding my breath as to whether it will be the kind of unconventional that reaffirms my belief that form is just as powerful as the words that make up sentences or if it will be the unconventional that tries to convince me that fiction should cast off the antiquated vestiges of grammar and plot and a protagonist’s desire as though all of literature that came before it were the juvenile plumage of a bird that, with this book alone, will finally molt feathers that need never return. Fortunately it’s the former, and the run-on sentences and multi-page paragraphs are not an attempt to be experimental (i.e., mistakenly conflate impenetrability with intelligence) but read like the blanching of French fries one performs before deep frying and sprinkling with salt—a necessary step to ensure the interior complements the exterior, that the story within the story, the one only I see, will be as rich as the words printed in every other copy.
I read the line “We were students of literature but we didn’t read in order to become clever and pass our exams with the highest commendations—we read in order to come to life” and I too am coming to life (or meeting yet another part of myself for the first time?) through this book that is alive.
The Everyday Essayist 