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-