A New York Times Notable Book and the winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction, Labrador is anything but what you might expect.
Kitty, the awkward, lonely younger sister narrates a long soliloquy to her older, dazzling and wayward sister Willie. The complex relationship between the sisters takes them from childhood when they pretended that they were orphans in their drafty New Hampshire home while their dysfunctional parents resumed life downstairs, to young adulthood where the ties that bind them twist and turn through the choices that they make.
But here is where the unexpected kicks in, merging the typical family angst with a haunting atmosphere and strange characters that might be reinventions of Kitty’s world or something more angelic or more sinister. As the sisters attempt to break away from their lives, one through rebellion and the other through a strange world filled with an inept angel names Rogni and a long lost relative, the mundane mixes with the bizarre leaving the reader not quite sure what happened.
The positives of Labrador is that the writing is lyrical and beautiful, almost a form of poetry with hidden meaning in every word that floats up an sinks down at the same time. It is a form of intellectual fiction that will leave you with a certain taste in the mouth as you find yourself reading passages out loud, reforming the words of the author, mushing them around in your mouth, the same way you can imagine Kitty, her main character doing; a bowl of Farina. It is a pleasure to read some of the passages, even those that are haunting.
It is not every one’s cup of tea, to continue the food metaphors. Those who are looking for a quick beach read may wind up tossing this one to the waves in confusion or frustration.
Even if your pallet does enjoy this sort of thing, you may still find yourself disappointed by the direction of the novel and the weak ending. The book could have been so much more than it is, although Labrador is still very much worth a read.
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