Agh. I love this so much. It isn’t a surprise, given how I feel about her previous novels, but I actually do think this innovates on the previous two to a more refined sense of style. I’ll get to that.

This go around we follow 4 characters, mostly from two perspectives: Eileen and Alice, best friends since about college. Alice is intelligent and learned and an extremely successful and working novelist. Eileen works at a literary magazine that does not make a profit and is funded by grants; she works as an editor, she barely gets by, and she is in a flat share. Both (I believe?) are 29.

The impetus for the story occurs when Alice gets out of a mental health establishment and moves to a small town, 3 hours for Dublin, in order to vacation. This episode, as well as her leaving, spins their lives like a top that certainly feels like it will eventually fall, if not stabilized somehow.

In this instability, Alice meets Felix on Tinder, an impromptu date and how the narrative sets off. Eileen, however, turns to Simon—the third of the group of long term friends (as well as Alice). And this causes them to re-examine their lives as they collide into each other and confront a tumultuous past.

Felix, on the other hand is like none of them. He seems to treat everyone and everything, more-or-less, like a game. Which puts his life and his interactions in a binary state of winning or losing. Alice, in contrast, has herself wound tight as a snare. She won’t be possessed and wields her intellectualism and false state of disillusionment with love and affection like a dagger when her hackles are raised.

As with Normal People, there is a through line of class stratification forming the underlining basis of personhood. Alice, though now rich, didn’t grow up so, and was shy and reclusive, friendless—except for Eileen—was and is thrust into parasocial relationships with her success; something she wasn’t socialized for and puts additional strain on her, even as other throughlines of anxiety manifest in other characters: The climate crisis, capitalism and its commodification of all things, including the art and sense of self Alice put into her work, massive global inequality and inequities, which only annunciate the pressure and guilt Alice feels for her success.

The book somewhat has a plot, though not traditional or put in the forefront whatsoever. Mostly, it’s focused on a central tension between Simon, Alice, and Eileen and their meeting again, coming to a sense of resolution.

But where this book really comes alive is in capturing the nuances of every interaction between the characters. It is deft at characterization through the peripheral. Environment and gesticulations unnoticed by one person are picked up with earnest curiosity of the narrator. The headspace is limited and depends entirely on the kind of interaction. The more intimate it is, the more we don’t have to infer. We see people move their hair and touch arms and try and express themselves as best they can.

We mostly see what they don’t see. There are endless gaps of knowledge they miss out and we are privy to; miscommunications abound; history intercedes.

As painful as it is to watch sometimes, they are undeniably beautiful in their attempts. It also shows the nourishment we give and receive between others when we make such attempts ourselves. People are messy, but to not try to connect is not even an option, as we see. Not speaking and changing your orbit so you no longer see the people in your life, is as much as communication and causes as much effect as the opposite.

And these moments we don’t feel the gravity of, too often, end up building our character and our morality and memories. These building blocks are the cornerstones of our being. They’re far more complex and nuanced than we imagine them to be. But we aren’t socialized, typically, to really communicate properly. Every character has their own defence mechanism and stumbling block; a spectre at every would be feast.

And what’s more is even in the structure of the book you can be let into those moments. As people come together and have an interaction—as their headspace merges and intimacy grows—they share the same actual physical space on the page. When they are separate and “not on the same page”, the paragraphs are more traditional and read quite differently. Walls of text become meaty elements to consume that are endlessly fascinating because they indicate intimacy and communication between the people. I think that’s a lovely way to telegraph to the reader where each character is at, cognitively.

The dialect is also masterful. No quotations whatsoever, unless needed in a larger paragraph or reference. There’s are dropped words and inflections. It’s impossible to not read it with an Irish accent at times, for certain characters (Felix). It’s not something you have to chew through and process, it’s as quick and easy as normal formatting.

All of this comes together to create a fitting homage to The Attempt. A finger pointed at treasuring the simple interactions of every day life, and how varied and different intimacy can manifest and be expressed. And how, really, the mundane is the bones of our lives. We ought to show more deference and time to them.