“Brood” by Jackie Polzin

Remember how I said I’d recently gone on a spree and ended up buying about 11 new books? It was kind of Sam’s idea. Sam wanted something new to read for our upcoming vacation (which has now become our current vacation). What he really wanted was something like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, or Bellman & Black (the connection not the ampersand in the title, but the bigness, awesomeness and fun. Not exactly how Sam described it, but close enough).

How do you go about finding big, awesome, fun new books? Here was my method. I wrote a list of our favorite authors, then looked online to see if they had any new books out. Most of them did not, but the internet is nothing if not good for “if you like this, then you’ll like that” suggestions, and while I don’t specifically remember what led me to Brood, the internet was right. I liked it. 

Polzin’s writing reminded me of several authors I’ve read (and enjoyed) recently. It was like Sarah Moss, or like Rachel Cusk (albeit without the intelligent and soul-baring conversations with strangers). It was like Nell Zink, but more The Wallcreeper than Nicotine.  It was simple, calm and quiet, but also powerful. 

Brood is narrated by a married woman with a flock of four chickens. (I have chickens, so this drew me to the book, but for Sam—who appreciates the eggs but not the hens—a storyline involving chickens was not a plus.) The chickens, and the narrator’s quest to keep them alive, are a major thread throughout the book, but other parts of her life (her relationships with her husband Percy, her mother, her best friend Helen, her non-existent children) are woven in as well. 

Here are four random things I want to mention about this book. 

1. I love its size. This is one of those smaller-than-usual books that fit so nicely in my hand. 

2. All of the writing was great except at the very beginning. In the first three pages we are introduced to Helen, who asked such odd questions about the hens that the only explanation that made sense to me was that Helen must be a child. (She was not.) This, to me, was the only false step, which kept me outside of the story, but not for long. The rest of the writing was great.

3. This was not a funny book, but it made me laugh out loud at least three times. However, when I read these things aloud to Sam, he did not even crack a smile. Hm.

3a. One of these three things was about the raccoon with a briefcase. Percy prefaced the scene by saying, “You’re not going to believe this.” And he was right. I didn’t believe it. It must have been intended literally, since everything else in the book was as well, but it was a little too fantastic. Could it actually have happened to the author? If it didn’t actually happen, I can’t believe it would happen.

4. About 3/4 of the way through this book, the author bio caught my eye, and I saw that she has children. Sam says this was an overreaction on my part, but I almost felt betrayed, having assumed that the book was heavily autobiographical and thus that the author was as childless as the narrator. Looking at this in a positive light: I love when authors are able to make books seem so real that I believe they are real.