Chatter: A Novel

Chatter, by Perrin Ireland, is very appropriately titled. Its pace is a mirror of the frenetic, self-obsessed world in which it is set; a world in which people talk at, instead of to, one another; a world punctuated by disaster, both personal and global.

It's a difficult novel to connect to, as its tone sets the reader at a deliberate, almost clinical remove from the characters. We guess at their motivations, and read our own subtext into their disjointed conversations. Everyone here is vaguely unlikable, self-obsessed, driven only by their own sense of how the world should be.

Chatter is very stylistically and deliberately written. I believe the author has succeeded in what she has tried to do, however I found the style distracting at show more times. I felt hung up every time a question ended with a period, and I struggled to keep the sense of conversations that had nothing to do with one another. I ended up feeling that the packaging, if you will, had become more important than the plot. show less

i loved Perrin Ireland's Chatter and was struck by its similarity to Paula Fox's masterpiece, Desperate Characters (which i just read). The premises are the same: A middle-aged, unemployed, childless, anxious woman isn't connecting well with her financially successful husband. She struggles as an artist and hasn't produced for awhile. Beset by class and age angst, she feels adrift and is drawn into a rendevous with another man.

Another reader described Chatter as lapidary, as i did Desperate Characters. But were it not for his description, i would have put Chatter down after the first 25 pages ironically because Ireland captures the controlling, neurotic thought rhythms of her main character, Sarah, so well that i felt claustrophobic. show more Self-absorbed Sarah muses over dress sizes, feels status guilt, makes judgments of male attractiveness based on testosterone and bounciness in the step, etc. Trained in disinterest by her mother, she listens without listening to her husband, Michael, while criticizing him and waiting for episodes of passion. The first 25 pp. were cringe-inducing and i was ready to quit. But then the novel opens up to the world and other characters. Ireland brilliantly captures an NPR-listening, New Yorker/literary fiction-reading milieu bombarded by TV's constant stream of war, poverty, and cruelty. Sarah helps a friend with cancer and Ireland's writing brings to mind Thom Jones's depths. Ireland knows her stuff and gets it down right from an ex-soldier who won't ever get over killing other people, to the motivations of guerillas, to the flight of global bankers, to the escapism of adventure travel, to the despair of ex-Peace Corps volunteers who know they didn't accomplish a damn thing beyond experiencing life in a slum.

Ireland's also playful; the thoughts of the ex-soldier bring to mind Tim O'Brien and then, voilà, a character muses on the seminality of The Things They Carried. i appreciate her playful intertextuality; it fits and she doesn't bang on trying to convince me she's a genius. i know i'm not saying this well, but with about 75 pp. to go, the anxious chatter recedes and becomes just one piece in an overall effect that is wise and kaleidoscopic. show less

I got this via the Early Reviewers Program some time ago, and delayed writing a review because I can't actually force myself to read it. One of the very first sentences is so painfully awkward that it's still like nails on a chalkboard when I read it now: "She got dizzy when she thought about when you're looking at your right side in the mirror it's your left side." Alright, it's an advance reading copy -- maybe it was edited before the final release -- but I only have what's in front of me, and what's in front of me doesn't get much better from there. On the next page, the two main characters have an incredibly irritating and inane conversation, in which the wife seems not to be listening to the husband at all, completely ignoring show more everything he says, including direct questions, and instead just blurting out whatever random thoughts pop in to her head. I do assume this was an intentional choice by the author, intended to illustrate something about the character, but I just find it irritating to read. Add in the too-short sentences, and the overall effect is just so unpleasant to me that I just can't get past page 11 or so. There may be a good story in here, but I dislike the writing style too much to find out. show less

Sarah and Michael's marriage is in trouble. Sarah is often alone while Michael travels for business, and when they do come together they talk around each other without really hearing what the other is saying.

Their situation is complicated even further when Michael reveals that he has been contacted a grown daughter previously unknown. Disturbed by this discovery, Sarah probes into Michael's past, interviewing Michael about his daughter and his first love.

Circling around the background are overheard conversations, radio clips, and TV chatter, bringing politics and world issues to the edges of a very intimate tale of marriage.

Ireland's style is sparse and clean. The novel progresses through short quick scenes of the everyday -- getting show more dressed together, a lunch at a restaurant, on their way to the airport -- but these things are incidental. The focus of the novel is communication, both the intimate and the worldwide, although often the strongest messages are contained that which is omitted, the subtext between each character.

Chatter is a beautifully crafted novel and well worth the read. show less

12.07

Michael and Sarah's marriage is already in trouble, held together mostly by routine and by the small comforts of domesticity. But with Sarah's discovery that Michael has a grown daughter he's never mentioned - and only just met - their relationship is pushed to the breaking point. His sudden need to visit his ex-lover and the constant, needling presence of his beautiful daughter drive Sarah to figure out why so much of her husband's past is a mystery. Trying to ferret out the truth, she begins to keep secrets of her own as she embarks on a fact-finding mission that will take her from Washington, D.C., to Latin America." "Chatter is a portrait of a marriage taken against the landscape of our frenetic culture, where invasive news show more reports, overheard conversations, and screaming headlines punctuate our days. Its dead-on dialogue captures our lives: the fractured sense of communication, the unfinished conversations, the questions somehow never answered. show less

I appreciate Ireland's intent to demonstrate how each character in the novel is so involved in their own world that they fail to be able to carry on a normal conversation (one person doesn't listen to the other, they just answer their own questions, essentially). Unfortunately, I think she was too successful, to the point that I as a reader felt isolated from the characters. The characters came off as cold and emotionless, as did the book. I had a really hard time finishing it because I didn't really get drawn in.

I received an ARC of Chatter by Perrin Ireland as part of the Early Reviewers program and so in return I will write a review of it.
Michael and Sarah are a middle-aged married couple and his past is paying an unexpected visit in the form of Camilla, an adult daughter he had not known about before. Sarah, whose paranoias include random violence and infidelity among many others, tells the story as she suspiciously follows, snoops and spies on Michael as he tries to understand who this Camilla is, where she came from and even more importantly, what happened to his other friends he left behind in the Peace Corps in South America, including Camilla's mother. The book is a real page turning as the reader learns of Michael's past and of his show more friends' shocking stories through Camilla and her mysterious mother.

That being said, I wished that Sarah would start taking Ritalan so that her thoughts would stop hopping from one thought to another, with no apparent connection. The narrator rambled on in a stream of hyper-consciousness and by the end I began wondering how Michael could tolerate Sarah's random and constant comments on just whatever popped into her mind. It took me several attempts to finish this book. I'm glad I read it, but I'm ready for something next with a more traditional narrative style. Reading this book was exhausting, but ultimately worthwhile. show less