The Strays

Title: The Strays

Author: Emily Bitto

Publisher: Affirm Press

Publish date: 2014

This author has two problems here:

1. They are working out their own doubts through the medium of this story. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but in this case, they’re worried about whether their writing is interesting enough and whether they’re talented enough. Which automatically makes for boring writing, even if the fears are erroneous.
2. Their editors failed them.

The narrator Lily is a single child from an average family, who’s semi-adopted into a fledgling artist colony. Apparently she finds the whole experience terribly bohemian and enviably, talentedly shocking. Some bad things happen along the way. The end.

The story could have been fine. There’s nothing better or worse about choosing this particular setting. But Lily in her constant struggle to validate her vicarious existence through the Trentham family simply serves as a puppet mouthpiece for the author, who has decided that anything so out-there as an artistic community with paedophilic tendencies has got to be worth a second look. Bitto hasn’t grasped the concept that there is more pathos and empathy to be had in the spilling of a glass of milk than in the explosion of several galaxies, given the right storytelling.

For the story to have worked, Lily would have had to do one of two things:

• Validated herself independently of the Trenthams
• Been more of an unreliable narrator and transparently weak, so the author and reader could talk over her head

She does neither.

In addition to this, the jumping about in time, particularly towards the end, ensures dissipation of whatever tension there was well in advance of the close of the novel. The relief when the whole lamentable dirge is over is immense.

It’s a shame, because Bitto has a nice turn of phrase and a fine hand for painting pictures. Were her editors more on the ball, they would have encouraged a calmer approach that played to her strengths of observation and given in less to uncontrolled histrionics. Hopefully this debut novel will boost confidence enough (having for some reason won the Stella Prize) for fears to be allayed and something more sensible in the future. There is scope.

I do have one burning question, though. How, in this world of The Strays, does one roast duck feed a gathering of at least 11 people? In my house it will feed three at the very most. If I knew the secret, my housekeeping money would last till October on January’s budget. There are three explanations I can think of:

1.  Evan Trentham possesses Christ-like carving and serving capabilities.
2. The family lives mainly by photosynthesis and only sits at table for show. This option would validate some of the other household arrangements.
3. There is a species of duck the size of a large turkey.

Or there’s a fourth possibility. The author and the editors were sloppy. Here and elsewhere. Better luck next time, maybe.

One weak wave of a Moose-hoof up out of five.