Title: Higher Ground*
Author: Anke Stelling (Trans. by Lucy Jones)
Rating: 3.5 stars / 5 stars
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Favorite Quote: “I’d like to castrate him. Yes, really, for the first time in my life, I want to cut off a man’s dick.” Stelling, Anke. Higher Ground. Scribe, 2021.
Review: Thank you to the publisher, Scribe, and the Edelweiss platform, for the free e-ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.
Higher Ground follows Resi, a writer and a mother, as she deals with the fallout from a book she published that painted her wealthier friends in a negative light. It deals with issues of motherhood, and poverty, gender and disintegrating adult friendships. I didn’t love this novel, but I also didn’t hate it. Overall, it was a meh experience.
Let’s start off on a positive note - the perspective of this novel is absolutely impeccable. There are moments sprinkled out the novel where the narrator is directly addressing her oldest daughter, Bea. These moments serve to both propel the narrative forward, but to also center the messages about motherhood and imperfect mother/daughter relationships.
Another aspect of this novel that works particularly well is the interplay between the narrative and its use of metaphor. For instance:
The rule I had broken was: ‘Don’t wash your dirty laundry in public.’ It’s a nice
phrase that holds families together. ‘Laundry’ stands for privacy, ‘dirty’ for
‘unpresentable,’ and ‘wash’ for spilling the beans, snitching and telling stories.
And when I say that telling stories is my profession, Ulf says: ‘You can’t use that as a
smokescreen.’ Because in the end, I chose my profession.
Stelling, Anke. Higher Ground. Scribe, 2021. Look at the layers of that figurative language. There’s metaphor and simile - layers, layers, layers. This attention to, and execution of, figurative language is woven throughout, adding a creative layer to an otherwise relatively cut and dry narrative. And these moments seem to take aim at the central issues explored by the novel. When marriage and aging is explored, the novel states, “We had wanted to save each other from wising up in the sense of becoming ruthless, grown-up in the sense of being stressed, married in the sense of being trapped, and parents in the sense of being overprotective.” Stelling, Anke. Higher Ground. Scribe, 2021. And for describing motherhood? “We weren’t like our mothers. We had our wild times, after all, fulfilled our dreams, got to know more than one penis, watched our waistlines only secretly, if at all, and our husbands knew how to use the washing machine.” Stelling, Anke. Higher Ground. Scribe, 2021.
So, the perspective and the use of figurative language are well executed in the novel. But that’s about when it falls flat. The book seems to go on for just a bit too long, often repeating similar moments or scenes for length, but without adding much depth. Further, even though the book probably shouldn’t have a resolution - given that it’s exploring issues that themselves don’t have resolutions (poverty, anger, etc.) - the meandering storyline that ultimately led to no particular resolution seemed more frustrating than pointed. Ultimately, the book seemed to be trying to make a point about wealth disparities and generational trauma…but it just never got there.
About that Quote: This is at times an incredibly angry novel, but that anger isn’t usually at the forefront of the narrative. It is certainly an undercurrent, but more often than not, the narrative itself is sedate. But, despite that, there are brief interruptions where the anger and the subtle violence of the novel breaks through. And this quote is one of those times. The crude language is one layer, and the action it is describing is another. This is an angry woman with a strong desire for revenge.
Have you read Higher Ground? Share your thoughts below!
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