Book 11: We Are Not Ourselves

We Are Not Ourselves

Matthew Thomas

This novel has received a number of positive reviews from the usual outlets, and I was intrigued by the possibility of a sweeping, but intimate, look at a family's experiences throughout the mid- to late-20th century. While that is exactly what We Are Not Ourselves does provide, I couldn't help but feel that the book was just there, successful with regard to its apparent ambitions but ultimately forgettable in its ordinariness. A lack of outright flaws, paired with this general sense of mere existence, makes it somewhat difficult to dissect the book and determine what makes it tick. The story, which follows the life of second-generation Irish-American Eileen Leary (née Tumulty) in New York City and its environs, is relatively straightforward, as is its cast of characters. Thomas touches lightly on worn stereotypes- the older generation is full of drunken, but hardworking and reliable Irishmen and -women- but does so in a way that feels surprisingly honest. Indeed, the novel's utter emotional honesty, and the forthright way in which it comes to the fore, is its greatest strength, and likely the cause of its undoing. We Are Not Ourselves so aptly reflects a certain kind of American experience that it no longer stands out as art, becoming relegated instead to the dull memory of lived experience. This reflects no small amount of skill on Thomas's part, but it does make for a reading experience that ultimately feels unnecessary; with nothing particularly compelling or unusual about these characters or their situation, it becomes difficult to justify spending 600-plus pages with them.

Then again, those aspects of the novel that stand out are quite remarkable. What does set the Learys apart, to an extent, is the uncomfortable and inescapable presence of Alzheimer's for much of the book. Like in real life, it begins as the reader's sneaky suspicion before being reluctantly named and then quickly blossoming into an all-consuming beast that overshadows everything else. Its effect on Ed (Eileen's husband, the afflicted), on Eileen's upwardly mobile ambitions and marriage, and on their son Connell is immediate, lasting, and as devastating as you'd expect. I found myself increasingly sympathetic to Eileen's and Connell's plight(s), even though I often had little patience for either or both at any given moment. To experience the gradual, and suddenly rapid, decline of Edmund Leary is, I suspect, to replicate in a small but accurate way the actual lived experience of those who have suffered the same knock-on effects of this and other diseases.

There can be no doubt, then, that Matthew Thomas is a skilled writer, and that he possesses a keen eye for the types of detail that render this novel so unmistakably believable. Unfortunately, what he has produced is a book that somehow lacks focus despite its narrow, well-defined scope. The first few perspective changes from Eileen to Connell are unexpected, and Thomas does not wholly capitalize on the different aspects of the story that each can provide; too often, such a jump is immediately forgotten, the narrative moving forward where a bit of reflection may have enhanced the story in a way that pure plot never could. Likewise, the plot lurches forward in unexpected bursts, and the reader is never quite sure when, in calendar time, the events are occurring. The book makes it unnecessarily difficult for readers to gain their chronologically minded bearings, which is distracting and detracts from the overall reading experience; we cannot begin to sense changes in the characters' lives if we cannot understand the ever-shifting context in which they occur.

Likewise, though Thomas brings his readers convincingly into his viewpoint characters' minds, he still fails to make them unique. Eileen and Connell may be well-defined, but- much like the supporting cast- they are defined in ways that border precariously on stereotypes; Thomas is rescued time and again by his attention to the tiny details that make the Learys incrementally more interesting than typical stock characters. Stereotyped or not, however, they are drawn so accurately from real life that they often become tiresome. In this way, they reflect the book's greatest strength and its ultimate weakness. The book is too convincing, and too real, to provide a particularly compelling reading experience; at the end of the day, it's just another series of days in the life. The book, for me, lacks any one exceptional characteristic that would make it stand out. We Are Not Ourselves is, as it intends to be, a sweeping, generalized, and believable look at the experiences of an upwardly mobile middle-class family in the 20th-century United States, but even the looming presence and lingering effects of Alzheimer's- brilliantly rendered here, make no mistake- aren't enough to make the book particularly compelling or memorable.

Grade: B