Y by Marjorie Celona (Hamish Hamilton), 351 pages, $30 cloth. Rating: NNNN
Marjorie Celona’s Y is being touted as one of the best debuts of the year, and you can see why.
It’s got a great premise – a baby is abandoned by her mother on the steps of the local Y, while a man looks on – and first-time novelist Celona doesn’t waste it.
She skilfully interweaves Shannon’s story with that of her desperate mother, making the reader as insistent as Shannon on finding out the circumstances of her birth.
As she’s shunted from foster home to foster home, we encounter some great characters along the way, especially Miranda, who adopts Shannon when she’s five and keeps trying to do the right thing, and her daughter, Lydia-Rose, with whom Shannon develops a complex relationship.
But it’s Celona’s protagonist who counts here. Shannon’s story is written in the first person in the bold, direct style reflecting the personality of someone who’s fearless but never stupid.
She may have a lazy eye, but she’s acutely observant about human nature and preternaturally determined to fulfill her life mission to find out where she came from.
In another strange way, though, the novel disappoints. Its short introductory page on the subject of the letter Y is almost too good, promising insights and a style that Celona never really delivers. If I were her, next time out I’d pursue whatever inspiration led her to write those two gorgeous paragraphs.
Celona reads alongside Joanne Harris, Vincent Lam, Ron Rash and Sandra Ridley on Sunday (October 21), and takes part in a round table with Rebecca Lee, Leanne Shapton and Anakana Schofield on Wednesday (October 24).
