Rest and Be Thankful by Emma Glass

First published in Great Britain in 2020; published by Bloomsbury Circus on December 1, 2020

In exquisite and powerful prose, a nurse tells her story over the course of a few night shifts in a London hospital’s neonatal ward. The title notwithstanding, Laura gets no rest as she moves from baby to baby, changing lines and diapers, comforting parents, trying to relieve “the crushing weight of their worry.” She encourages fathers to hold their children rather than their cellphones. She dreads the death of her patients. Perhaps she should be thankful that her relationship with the partner who seems to despise her is ending, but he’s keeping the flat, forcing her to move into a single room in hospital residence housing.

There is value in reading about lives that a reader would never want to live. Holding a sleeping baby, Laura explains why she performs such a thankless job: “This is why I’m here. A sick baby on his way to being well. On his way to being well because of surgery, medication, holding, sleeping, something. I wish I knew which one it was because then we could do more. Save more babies. Sometimes none of it works. I think about this all the time.” Hers is a world of hope and despair in a constant struggle for supremacy.

Laura fears the struggle may be driving her mad. Perhaps it is. She is certain that she saw someone step onto the tracks of the subway she’s riding but the death she envisioned never happened. A coworker asks her what’s happening in her life “because you are always late and your hair is a bit of a mess and you don’t smell but it’s a slippery slope.” Death is never far from her mind. She starts the day on her last legs. In her sleep-deprived moments, Laura thinks she sees an apparition in black, perhaps the Grim Reaper, waiting in a hospital chair. The same figure haunts her dreams.

Laura’s life might be better without her partner, about whom we learn little. “I will miss the lick you give your lips before you speak,” Laura thinks to herself, “but I will not miss the words that follow and fall out of that wry wet mouth.” Yet it’s never quite clear whether it is her job or her partner or a traumatic event in her life that has shaped her sorrowed response to the days we glimpse.

A long road in Scotland is named Rest and Be Thankful, apparently because after a long uphill journey, travelers rest and are thankful they reached the top. Whether Laura will reach the top of her uphill climb, a place where she can rest, is unclear.

The novel is relatively short. It ends abruptly and ambiguously, resolving nothing. Readers who demand a plot won’t find one here. The story is simply Laura’s life told in a snapshot. The story left me wanting more but that’s better than a longer story that leaves me wondering why I read so many wasted words. The novel works because of Emma Glass’ ability to place the reader in Laura’s shoes, to make us feel her empathy, her frustation, her desperate unraveling.

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Peach by Emma Glass

First published in Great Britain in 2018; published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC on January 11, 2018

Peach is a surrealistic novel about the aftermath of a sexual assault. The story has elements of a disturbing fantasy. Sexual assault is disturbing but it isn’t a fantasy, and I must admit that I’m not sure I understood Emma Glass’ purpose in telling a story about such a serious event from a perspective that is so obviously removed from reality. The reader is clearly not expected to view most of the novel’s events as plausible, but if that’s so, should we view the sexual assault as real? And if nothing in this story is meant to be accepted as real, what is its purpose? Perhaps the point is that the protagonist has unraveled as a result of the assault, but I can’t quite fit that in with the surrounding environment, including bizarre parenting and cannibalism. I have to confess that Glass’ meaning entirely eluded me. But I enjoyed the story, and perhaps more astute readers will unpack its mysteries.

Peach comes home bleeding but her parents don’t notice. If anything, they are pleased that she is “putting out” before she’s married. Peach wants to tell Green, her boyfriend, what happened to her but she can’t find the words. The details are not explicitly shared with the reader, but it is clear that she was sexually assaulted. She later receives a letter, words cut from newspapers, signed with the name Lincoln, that smells like greasy sausage, as did the man who assaulted her, and so puts the name Lincoln to her assailant.

Later Lincoln (or so she assumes) attacks Green, a vicious beating that is witnessed by Green’s friend Spud. Peach knows when Lincoln has been watching her because he leaves behind a slimy residue that carries an odor of grease and meat. Describing Peach’s ultimate confrontation with Lincoln would spoil the story, so I will say only that it is the stuff of fantasy or horror fiction. Not to put too fine a point on it, but my primary thought as I was reading that scene was WTF?

Mysteries for the reader to ponder include Peach’s sudden weight gain (which may or may not result from the obvious explanation), the meaning of Lincoln’s cryptic notes, the sex-obsessed behavior of Peach’s parents, the symbolic nature of Lincoln’s meat smell, the reason that Peach’s parents are so obsessed with eating meat (Peach is a vegetarian), and the parents’ reaction to the aftermath of Peach’s confrontation with Lincoln. My hat is tipped to readers who can answer those questions.

Peach tells a dark story in an incongruously light style. Some aspects of the story are bizarre, and I am not quite sure what message Emma Glass meant to send. Is the book intended to say something about female empowerment? Is it a meditation on the pain of rape? Is it a fantasy or the product of a disturbed mind? The reader will need to decide; I haven’t been able to settle on an interpretation, or even to begin shaping one that I regard as credible.

Emma Glass uses a number of literary techniques associated with poetry, including alliteration, assonance, repetition, imagery, and even the occasional rhyme, to give her prose a lyrical feel. She also indulges in a bit of wordplay. “Thick slick. Blood bleeds into the water, colour changes copper. … I tread, I tread. I reach between my legs until I find the final thread. I tread. The fine fibre I fumble to find with thick fingers, feel through viscuous liquid leaking out, leaking in. Treading still, I dread, I tug the thread.” A little of that can go a long way, but the novel is short, which makes it read like an epic poem.

And it’s good that the novel is short because the imagery is often quite disturbing, which might explain why Glass lightens the story, albeit with dark humor. Peach is a challenging novel but the prose alone is rewarding, and the story’s strangeness offers ample nourishment for thought. For that reason, and because I enjoyed the prose, I am recommending Peach despite my inability to make much sense of it.

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