Second Self, Chloë Ashby
Chloë Ashby’s assured second novel is narrated by Cathy, a thirty-five-year-old art conservationist whose personal life is at a watershed. Her husband Noah has always been definite that he doesn’t want children and, until recently, Cathy has felt the same. But suddenly she is not so sure. She impetuously decides to preserve her fertility by freezing her eggs. Will this make her relationship with Noah unsustainable? And is motherhood even feasible bearing in mind her own mother’s increasing confusion and forgetfulness?
Fertility, dementia and ambivalence over having children are common themes in contemporary fiction. However, Ashby’s subtle novel never feels formulaic. Her portrayal of her protagonist’s struggle to decide what she really feels about motherhood – and to come to terms with her own mother’s decline – is compassionate and convincing. Her account of Cathy’s professional work removing the overpaint on a Dutch Old Master canvas, and of the emotional effect that her resultant discovery has on her, is equally powerful. And her often-painterly prose is a delight, whether she’s describing the ‘sepia and russet tones’ of trees in autumn, or a cat’s paws ‘marbled with black and pink’.
But perhaps the novel is most satisfying in its reminder that there are no simple right choices in life. Cathy may have periodic yearnings for motherhood, but she also increasingly appreciates the warmth of her current relationship with Noah, and comes to recognize, in the words of her friend Frank, that ‘meaning comes from all sorts of things’ and ‘there’s no one definition of family’. In a world where many people feel under pressure to conform, this makes Second Self not only a stimulating book, but also a consoling one.
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