Attraction
By Ruby Porter
Book: Attraction
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Pub Date: May 7th 2019
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher
Book Links: Goodreads Amazon Barnes&Noble
The present reckons with the past in Attraction, Ruby Porter’s atmospheric debut novel.
Three women are on a road trip, navigating the motorways of the North Island, their relationships with one another and New Zealand’s colonial history. Our narrator doesn’t know where she stands with Ilana, her not-quite girlfriend. She has a complex history with her best friend, Ashi. She’s haunted by the memory of her emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend. And her period’s now weeks late.
Attraction is a meditative novel of connection, inheritance and the stories we tell ourselves. In lyrical fragments, Porter explores what it means to be and to belong, to create and to destroy.
‘[Porter’s] writing has the intensity of Sally Rooney, the rawness of Andrew McGahan’s Praise and 1988 but is also distinctly original…[A]n utterly amazing debut.’ Jon Page
My Review: Ruby Porter’s debut novel Attraction features an unnamed narrator, her not-a-girlfriend Ilana, and the narrator’s childhood best-friend Ashi. The girls take a roadtrip through New Zealand to the narrator’s family bach but the trip is filled with tension, anxiety, and jealousy as the girls struggle to define their relationship with themselves and each other. The novel also follows the narrator’s white guilt, what it means to be part of a family, and colonialism in New Zealand, both past and present.
This novel is unlike anything I have ever read. The format is distinctly its own, bouncing between the past and the present, the personal and the historic, hopefulness and despair. From the start, it is a rollercoaster of emotion.
My feelings about this work are almost as complex as the work itself. One one hand, I greatly enjoyed this as a literary novel and I finished it in one day because I couldn’t put it down. On the other hand, almost everyone in this story is unlikable, including (especially) the narrator. The narrator laments her toxic relationship with her ex-boyfriend and this theme carries into the narrator’s relationships with her family, friends, and not-quite girlfriend. The narrator is unreliable, as is everyone telling a story about their own life, and she often reminds the reader, “every time you remember something you’re only remembering the last time you thought of it”.
The story has no real ending and no significant character development. These letdowns paired with the dark history of colonialism in New Zealand, and it’s pervasiveness today, left me frustrated and disappointed. With that being said, that’s how life goes sometimes. Not everything is happily-ever-after and people don’t always experience a miraculous change of character.
The thing is, even if the characters aren’t necessarily likable and the history of colonialism in New Zealand is depressing, it’s real. You can feel the raw emotion in the writing. It’s so utterly human and that is part of what makes the terrible aspects of it so wonderful. I can understand why readers would be put off by the style or the theme of the novel but I think those who can get through those barriers will find it captivating, emotional, and thought-provoking. This isn’t the kind of book that I would recommend to everyone but to anyone looking for a poignant read, look no further.
My Rating:
✪✪✪✪
