Chrysalis

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Anticipating Simon’s arrival, I’d moved to the lat pull-down, put it on the heaviest setting and was struggling to keep form. Metcalfe describes through three perspectives the transformation of a woman who has been traumatized. As a child, her restlessness made others uncomfortable but after her metamorphosis, her stillness made people uncomfortable.

Taking on questions of femininity and expectation, as well as social media and its ability to make a cult leader of anyone, Chrysalis raises as many questions as it answers about our society and our place within it.Metcalfe has previously published short stories, and was recently named on Granta magazine’s Best of Young British Novelists list. Photograph: Alice Zoo View image in fullscreen Anna Metcalfe’s nameless protagonist becomes ‘a cult figure who embraces solitude’. The second perspective is told by her mother who gives backstory on our unnamed main characters childhood through to adult life where she eradicates all family ties.

I never used to pick up on that kind of stuff but, since I started taking care of myself, I’ve become more sensitive to all kinds of things. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. Like it’s one of those books like I’m sure 10% readers love and say that anyone who doesn’t love it just doesn’t “get” it. Through the eyes of an acquaintance she meets at the gym, her mother, and her friend from work, we are drip-fed details that uncover the intriguing and thought-provoking mystery surrounding her.Then there’s the conformist Susie, lonely and drifting, the woman’s brief stay in her apartment provides a direction and purpose she’s been seeking. It’s during the pre- and post-work rushes that you see the sprained ankles and pulled knees, locked shoulders, muscle spasms. Ranging from online obsession, to mothers and daughters, to the very nature of selfhood, the whole thing is strange and warm and, crucially, very funny. They can barely explain it and from what they tell the reader it is hard to understand how this woman can be so influential, because she seems pretty awful and entirely selfish. The main, unnamed protagonist is supposed (I think) to be some kind of spiritual hero, living alone, focussing on training her body and subsequently her mind, but she just came across and rude and self-centred.

She felt helpless raising her, and now she observes as her daughter’s lifestyle impacts strangers’ lives. I’ve become very good at finding the quietest possible time to do anything, and I’ve been a regular at the gym for a while. After that, there are the “morning people,” full of energy, smiling at everyone, failing to notice when no one smiles back.This is a sharply-wrought, surprisingly tender book about how our internal changes create external change. Susie watches the woman develop her autonomy and train herself to be as still as possible through meditation. We later get the perspective of her mother, who describes to us her manner of being as a young child through young adulthood. It’s about the different forms of isolation and the effects that come from it, including loneliness, solitude and sometimes, independence.