March 1, 2022
Upended by COVID-19 lockdown, a British classics professor specializing in prophecy decides she would rather be predicting the future. Soon she's invested in palm reading, then zoomancy (prophecy by animal behavior) and oenomancy (prophecy by wine), but she completely misses the problems unfolding at home in real time. From poet/playwright/translator Pollard.
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
June 1, 2022
A British classics professor intersperses her lockdown diary with a taxonomy of ancient systems of prophecy. The unnamed narrator of Pollard's debut novel titles each of her short chapters with a method of foretelling the future, starting with "Theomancy: Prophecy by Foretelling Events" and ending with "Dactylomancy: Prophecy by Means of Finger Movements." Upon a random check, even the kookier-sounding ones--"Urticariaomancy: Prophecy by Itches," "Ololygmancy: Prophecy by the Howling of Dogs"--are authentic. The entries narrate experiences and emotions familiar from our recent collective experiment in uncertainty, from home schooling to craft cocktails to Zoom exhaustion and news addiction. In fact, except for some slight variations since the book is set in the U.K., it all feels so familiar and real that it has the feeling of a time capsule that's been opened many years too soon--though Pollard, the author of six books of poetry, is at pains to bookend her narrative with assurances that it is fictional. The narrator teaches a screenful of students with their cameras off, deals with her 10-year-old son's increasing dependence on screens even as she follows on her own screen the unfolding nightmares of Sarah Everard (a young woman who was murdered in London) and Donald Trump. She tries an I Ching app, visits an online psychic, does tarot readings. She keeps getting the family happiness card even as her husband steps up his drinking and the marriage frays. Finally she decides to jump the fence and go for a walk only to run into an acquaintance who complains about her au pair, leading her to rush home in horror. "I haven't missed small talk" is one of many wry, relatable moments--but these might be funnier later on. Here and there, big plot elements drop in like stones, with little buildup or aftermath, including a last-minute bit of terrifying melodrama with mythic overtones. Re-creates the particular frustration, tedium, and fear of 2020 and 2021 with depressing verisimilitude.
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July 1, 2022
Poet Pollard's debut novel is a dreamy meditation on classical and contemporary practices of prophecy set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unnamed narrator is a classics professor living with her husband, Jason, and their pre-teen son, Xander, in London. As she ponders the many ways the ancient Greeks attempted to divine the future, using birds, entrails, and human sacrifice, the world locks down as the plague spreads, and she finds herself turning to methods of augury still practiced today, such as tarot readings and I Ching. Being trapped in her home with Jason and Xander forces her to work harder than ever to hide from the fact that both her marriage and her son are troubled. Her burgeoning attraction to a nonbinary colleague is a welcome if potentially dangerous distraction. Some readers may find Pollard's focus on life during COVID-19 and stream-of-consciousness a bit off-putting, but lovers of literary fiction and classical mythology will find much to enjoy here, and two late-in-the-plot developments serve as sobering reminders that few escape the pandemic unscathed.
COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
August 15, 2022
Poet Pollard (The Heavy-Petting Zoo) follows an unnamed professor and mother’s adjustment to the Covid-19 lockdown in her richly layered debut novel. The narrator’s interior monologue alternates between racing panic and numbed tedium as she juggles a classics course, a translation project, and research on divination methods for her next book. As her 10-year-old son, Xander, deals with depression, and the two become increasingly isolated, she calls upon German words to define her state of mind. The novel is separated into short chapters, each named after a form of prophecy she’s been researching, which she connects to her attempts to cope with the new normal (in “Tarotmancy: Prophecy by Tarot,” she counts Xander among her mixed blessings while drawing a tarot card from a deck). In some chapters, the narrator meditates monotonously for several pages on what happens during a single hour; in others, she rushes through a matter of months in a few paragraphs. The uneven pacing creates discomfort, which seems to be the point; though Pollard’s fractured narrative is difficult to get through at times, it effectively conveys the first year of the pandemic. It’s low-key compared to other recent pandemic fiction, but the main character’s frustration and fear is sure to strike a chord.
July 1, 2022
DEBUT Written at a feverish pace once her own children returned to school, London poet/playwright Pollard's exquisitely painful debut recaps the hellish first year of the COVID pandemic. COVID hits England just as the unnamed 45-year-old narrator, a British academic and translator, begins a novel about prophecies and Greek myths. As the lockdown drags on, she, her husband, and their 10-year-old son grow short-tempered and emotionally distant from one another. The narrator recounts the details of their yearlong suffering in short journal entries labeled with specific prophecies: Ovomancy covers the dilemma of safe travel (the family scraps their plan to go to Delphi for Easter), while in Cybermancy she's aghast at the fallout for students learning online. With the help of online psychics, Tarot apps, and the I Ching, she desperately searches for signs pointing to the end of the COVID nightmare, blinding her to a looming family disaster playing out before her. VERDICT Pollard's deft inclusion of all the pandemic's practical and political challenges--masks, vaccines, social distancing, the strain on shared home WiFi networks, long separations from aging parents, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and January 6--is wrapped in the inventive framework of prophecies. Irresistible and also oddly reassuring for all who have come through (so far) to the other side of COVID's miseries.--Beth E. Andersen
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.