Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Well what a journey this was. I am not sure that I would have finished this book if it weren’t for my friend Lauren. I picked it up because of her and started, despite the length, without knowing anything about it. About an hour in, I decided I had made a mistake and there was no way I could endure this for another 44 hours. I continued for a few more hours and then decided I needed to take a break. I started and finished another book and then checked in with my friend Lauren who was still at it, so I went back and, within minutes, I remembered why I had put it down. I did a few more hours and then put it down again. I felt like it was annoying me disproportionately considering how relatable parts of the story was. After finishing another book, I decided to give it one more try. And I guess third time was the charm because after that I could not put it down.
First of all, the audiobook narrator did an extraordinary job. I cannot imagine how hard this book was to do well on audio and she absolutely excelled. This book both had no plot and way way too much plot. It was a perfect representation of the brain’s default mode network. [When your brain is awake but “at rest,” it is actually highly active and generates thoughts not triggered by the outside world. Neuroscientists call these internal cognitive processes stimulus-independent thoughts.] I kept waiting for something to happen.
And here’s the thing, when it finally did, I was very much let down. Because, to me, the rest of this book was so much more of what life really is like. A million thoughts all day long that look to be disparate but are connected through the fact that they collectively make up the way the character sees and processes the world.
And, in the end, that was so much more powerful than the one big moment. It was so much more revealing.
Even if the details of this book don’t stay with me, the reminder that each of us have these full-on tapes inside of us that go on all day long will absolutely stay with me.
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