Struggling while others thrive? This sombre read may be a welcoming stiff drink
Novel
The Morbids
By Ewa Ramsey
Your twenties are the time in which you’re supposed to “figure things out”, but the protagonist in Ewa Ramsey’s debut novel, Caitlin, is struggling. I can relate. In my early 20s, when I’d just quit law, I went back to hospitality and retail, and I watched my peers in their glossy corporate gigs moving up and on with their lives.
Ewa Ramsey’s writing about the mind and its traps is accurate, but also incredibly tender.
Caitlin has always been a bit anxious but then she experiences a hugely traumatic event: on her way home from a night out, the Uber she’s riding in gets hit. She spirals downwards into a dark place, fuelled by insomnia and alcohol. We follow her for a couple of years as she is forced to relive and re-remember, over and over, how she should have died. Stuck in this loop, Caitlin watches her best friend get engaged and buy a house; meanwhile, her parents are grilling her about when she’ll quit her restaurant job and start a “real career”.
The title comes from this book’s darkly hilarious hook. The Morbids is a sort of support group that Caitlin secretly goes to each Tuesday for people who are convinced they’re going to die. The first time I went to see a counsellor I definitely didn’t want to tell people, so it made sense to me that Caitlin didn’t, either.
I laughed out loud as Ramsey introduced the attendees and listed their “favourite” deaths to imagine: domestic accident, vehicular, cancer. They “ooh” and “aah” at each other’s imaginings.
Ramsey’s personal experience with anxiety gives a sharp but perfect edge to the punchlines. Her writing about the mind and its traps is accurate, but also incredibly tender. If you feel like you’re struggling and everyone around you is either getting promoted or pregnant, this book might be just the hug and the stiff drink you need.
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