A challenging, thought-provoking and intriguing companion piece to J M Coetzee’s novel Disgrace. It’s perhaps not essential to read that novel first, but I would recommend so doing as it informs the thesis that Snyckers explores in her response to it. Her protagonist Lucy Lurie is brutally raped by six black men who break in to her father’s house and she subsequently becomes convinced that Coetzee, or rather Snyckers’ version of him, has appropriated her story and exploited her misfortune for his own ends, misrepresenting what actually occurred. According to Lucy in Snykers’ version, Lucy in Coetzee’s novel has no agency and the reader isn’t privy to her inner world, and she wants to redress that lacuna. There are so many issues and themes examined in this novel it’s difficult to list them all – race, white privilege, gender, sexual violence, the patriarchy, intertextuality, intersectionality, literary criticism and academia, society’s attitude to rape, victim-shaming – and so on and so on. Heady stuff, but surprisingly, in view of the importance and seriousness of these issues, there’s much humour in the book too and it’s often unexpectedly funny. Not least when having a go at veganism or pretentious literary theory. Perhaps the key question here is does an author have to right to tell someone else’s story and use real life as metaphor, as Coetzee (allegedly) does in his novel where he uses his Lucy’s rape as a metaphor for the rape of South Africa, and the child that results a symbol of reconciliation. Discuss. In fact discuss this whole book – there’s a lot to talk about, as there is in Disgrace. I found Snyckers’ response to it completely fascinating and absorbing and her Lucy, if not likeable or sympathetic, and extraordinarily unreliable as a narrator, a compelling figure indeed. Highly recommended.

It would be hard to love this novel more than I do. It captivated me for its story and it's also an extraordinary critique of Coetzee's DISGRACE. It's a great novel, and it's also great literary criticism.

There is just one other book I'm aware of in this genre of "literary criticism presented as a novel"--The Meursault Investigation, a novel by Kamel Daoud, a critique-as-fiction of Camus's The Stranger. I wish there were more. I feel as if I've spent time with an extraordinary writer who also loves reading and who understands how literary language works.

The way Lucy deals with her trauma is very powerful. I cheered for her as she did everything she could to piece her life back together afterward. Read this strong and vivid book and find yourself cheering for Lucy and hoping her closure will allow her to be as free as she can. Happy reading!

Notwithstanding the #Me Too movement, women’s accounts of rape are still frequently disbelieved in favor of unsatisfying “he said-she said” narratives that all too frequently come down on the side of the powerful. One only needs to consider the Kavanaugh hearings or the many allegations against Trump to understand this sad fact. Snyckers explores this dynamic by re-imagining Lucy Lurie, the protagonist of “Disgrace” JM Coetzee’s award-winning novel that uses a brutal rape as a metaphor for racial reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa. Unlike Coetzee’s Lucy, a passive person devoid of agency, Snyckers’ Lucy is intelligent and belligerent, totally obsessed with scratching back her voice and agency from how they were portrayed in Coetzee’s novel. Snyckers’ creation is far from perfect. She suffers from PTSD, is withdrawn, afraid of crowds, deluded about finding Coetzee and making him understand her point of view, and at bottom, a deeply unreliable narrator.

At its core, this engaging stream-of-consciousness narrative explores the relationship between fact and fiction in storytelling. It artfully explores the question of just who owns a story? Is it the artist, the subject, or the reader? Lucy begins her meditation with the strong belief that she owns her story and Coetzee has no right to use it for his own purposes. Clearly, one can make a successful argument that rape is a particularly ill-suited metaphor for South African racial reconciliation, yet the central question of the novel is never resolved. Instead, one comes away with the feeling that art needs to be judged on its own merits by those who consume it. The artist and the subject are merely conduits to carry ideas forward. Interestingly, this question appeared once again in all its messy glory in the recent press. Amanda Knox, the American student accused of killing her roommate while studying in Italy, objected to the adaptation of her story in the recent film, “Stillwater.” Clearly, such creations can interfere with healing from trauma. Notwithstanding, they still can contain artistic value. One could rightly argue that “Stillwater” may not have as much artistic merit as “Disgrace”, but it is not totally devoid of art.

Snykers’ writing is accomplished primarily because it explores culture broadly with humor and insightfulness almost exclusively through Lucy’s internal monologue. She does so by identifying and criticizing Lucy’s ideas using multiple characters, including her long-time friend Moira, her therapist Lydia Bascombe, her love interest Eugene Huzain, her distant father, and her academic colleagues. It is ironic, however, that Snyckers’ fictional Coetzee plays no active role in the novel, except in Lucy’s mind. This is primarily a novel of ideas, but the plot, such as it is, still has a satisfying resolution.

So metatextual it hurts! This is great, in a mind-bendy, experimental fiction kind of way. Its greatest strength could also be seen as its biggest flaw, but this - as is only fitting - is a matter of perspective. Anyone who is interested in the study of literature will probably find this very satisfying, as well as anyone engaged in the 'own voices' debate. Although the plot itself is tough to swallow, as a piece of art it's uncomfortable, exhilarating, empowering, cringe-y - really, it has everything.

My thanks to Europa Editions and NetGalley for the ARC.