Negative Space’ by Gillian Linden (2024) – 160 pages
Suddenly there seem to be quite a few novels that deal with the Time of Covid.
In ‘Negative Space’, the schools have just re-opened after the covid lock down. Everyone is required to still wear a mask, and some parents have decided not to send their children to school yet. These at-home children are supposed to attend their classes and participate using Zoom technology. There are inevitable connection problems, and the problem might be at the school or at the student’s home. Either way it turns the class into something chaotic.
Our unnamed main protagonist in ‘Negative Space’ is a part-time teacher at this expensive private school. She is also the mother of two small children herself. She has one class of sixth graders and one class of ninth graders.
One day she interrupts a meeting between one of her female ninth-grade students and a male teacher who happens to be our teacher’s advisor. They seem to be inappropriately close together, and she notices their heads touching. Was it a nudge or a nuzzle?
She reports this incident to the woman school administrator like she is supposed to do, but the administrator really doesn’t want to hear about it. Our teacher wonders if her contract for the following year will be renewed.
Along with the scenes in the novel that take place at her school, the reader also gets scattered scenes of this part-time teacher dealing with her children at home. The father seems to be away at his job most of the time, so she usually has to contend with her children by herself. Her daughter is anxious abut her baby teeth which are now coming out. The son often bruises himself falling down stairs, and his mother worries that the bruises might make it appear that someone was hurting her son.
The author Gillian Linden skillfully portrays the generalized anxiety of this teacher and mother and her family during the Time of Covid. However it did not make stimulating reading for me. The minimalist style of writing (no adjectives, short sentences) here makes the scenes seem almost colorless, and it was difficult for me to read more than a few pages at a time. Generally I like the minimalist style, but maybe not for this austere covid time. The covid time was a difficult time for most of us and unfortunately it is not much fun to read about it.
Grade : B-
Tony's Book World 
Posted by Lisa Hill on September 12, 2024 at 5:39 PM
Oh I hear you, there was so much whingeing at the time, who wants to revisit that?
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Posted by Anokatony on September 12, 2024 at 7:57 PM
Hi Lisa,
“Whingeing” must be an Australian word. I am not familiar with It.
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Posted by Lisa Hill on September 13, 2024 at 2:23 AM
Is it? Dunno. Anyway, it means complaining ad nauseam about things that are trivial or, if not, about things that everyone else is experiencing but not complaining about.
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Posted by Anokatony on September 13, 2024 at 6:39 AM
I was wrong; it is in the American English dictionary and the definition is, as you say, to complain or whine.
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Posted by Lisa Hill on September 13, 2024 at 8:20 AM
We probably borrowed it from you!
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Posted by Cathy746books on September 12, 2024 at 6:24 PM
I have yet to read a book that deals with Covid that I have fully enjoyed. I just don’t want to read about that time yet.
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Posted by Anokatony on September 12, 2024 at 7:56 PM
Hi Cathy,
Yes that would be a real writer’s challenge, to make the Time of Covid enjoyable.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on September 13, 2024 at 8:32 PM
Hi Tony — tried to leave a comment but not sure it’s shown up (WordPress hasn’t been cooperative lately). I’m afraid Negative Space isn’t for me; I’m not too demanding regarding plot but even so the events in this one sound pretty dull!
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Posted by Anokatony on September 13, 2024 at 8:51 PM
Hi Janakay,
I’m going to be watching to see if anyone can come up with a Time of Covid novel that is actually interesting and/or enjoyable. It is a challenge.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on September 13, 2024 at 9:41 PM
Even if someone wrote “the Great Covid Novel,” few would read it & no one would like it! Perhaps diseases just don’t make good novels? Not sure I buy that theory, however. Although I can’t think of anything off hand, the Black Death (Decameron?) & 1918’s flu epidemic (Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider) seem to have provided good source material! Maybe covid was just too boring, or we’re still too close to it.On a different & personal note, I continue slogging away at the Booker Long list, having just finished Kushner’s Creation Lake. I’m not sure she’ll be a novelist I follow, but Lake was an interesting read that was worth the time. I’m in the mood this weekend for Richard Power’s Playground, but alas it’s not yet out (I don’t feel like starting either James or Wandering Star right now). Have you read Messud’s Strange, Eventful History or Matar’s My Friends? They’re both really good. It’ll be interesting to see if they make the short list, which comes out next week. My own favorite from the list so far, however, has been Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional!
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Posted by Anokatony on September 14, 2024 at 1:23 AM
Funny thing! I have not even heard of ‘Stone Yard Devotional’ and hadn’t even noticed it on the Booker longlist. I’ll be watching for it now.
I kind of avoided Claire Messud’s ‘Strange, Eventful History’ because of its length (464 pages) even though I have much liked her work in the past. Maybe if it makes the shortlist… I haven’t read any Matar yet.
I’ve read four of the Booker longlist this year, and my favorite is ‘The Safekeep’ with ‘Wild Houses’ a close second.
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Posted by Janakay | YouMightAsWellRead on September 14, 2024 at 1:47 AM
Stone Yard Devotional is really flying under the radar. I hadn’t intended to bother with it, until I realized the author had previously written a book I liked very much (The Weekend). Stone may not be to your taste — I may be misusing the term, but I think our U.K. friends might call it a “marmite book,” i.e., there’s no in-between, you either really like it or you loathe it. Nothing much happens in the way of plot and certain things go unsaid or implied or unresolved. The protagonist leaves job, husband & life behind to live in a small, poor convent in the Australian outback, close to the town where she grew up. There’s nothing religious about it, really; the main character (an agonistic at best) is largely motivated by a desire to walk lightly on the earth, to live in a way that respects nature and, perhaps, to simply disappear from the turmoil of the 21st century (but she’s not pompous about it!) The novel proceeds in the form of journal entries that no one is ever intended to read; narrative arcs occur in flashbacks & flash forwards and some very heavy subjects are treated in a wonderfully humane way.
Messud’s novel really does require a lot of time. It’s the best thing of hers that I’ve read, however (I missed The Emperor’s Children but otherwise have read about half of her novels).
This was my first novel by Matar (I’d read his memoir, A Month in Siena but didn’t like it). I forced myself to give it a chance and — surprise! I thought it was great. I’d be surprised not to see it on the short list.
I, too, liked Wild Houses; the dialogue & characters were great. It also had a plot, a somewhat welcome relief after Orbital! (I did like Orbital, I just wasn’t sure whether I was reading a prose poem, a meditative essay, a collection of vignettes or a novel!)
Didn’t you love Everett’s James? Did you notice its been nominated for the National Book Award?
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Posted by Anokatony on September 14, 2024 at 3:21 AM
OK, ‘James’.
‘Huckleberry Finn’ was probably my favorite novel as a child, and I really didn’t want to see it redone. I have read quite a few of Percival Everett’s other novels now and watched ‘American Fiction’ which was a wonderful movie. I guess I like his work better when it isn’t a re-write.
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