JACKDAW AFFLICTION

Hyde offers a cerebral novel of an unfortunate life with a degenerative neurological disease.

Billy Cooper grew up in a seemingly ordinary household. But things soon piled up that marked the instability he would come to remember: the constant arguments between his parents over his grandmother, his sister (and closest friend) moving out and having a child, and his mother’s sudden death. Now 16, Billy learns to live independently in the city, where he makes a living as a bike courier and forms relationships both heartening and trying. One such relationship is with an older, charming girl named Cate, whom Billy courts and eventually marries, spending the rest of the novel alongside her—even after he’s diagnosed with cerebellar ataxia. This debilitating condition slowly manifests itself through bouts of fatigue, blurry vision, and physical pain, forcing Billy to give up his burgeoning career in cooking and irrevocably straining his marriage with Cate. Separated from both family and friends, Billy deals internally with the throes of isolation and shame. With most of the novel set in Billy’s consciousness, the question of what is real and what isn’t lingers throughout. The past resurfaces, only to be plagued by doubt, and the present grows increasingly disturbing—the truth is always veiled by an opaque, swirling psychology, best captured by Billy’s recurring “Head trip reflection[s]” that break up the linear narrative with tangents driven by Billy’s unstable psychological state. Hyde’s control of Billy’s voice is strong throughout, if overpowering at times, with sparse and forceful syntax evoking a vitriol-filled mind: “This place is getting too much for me. Need to escape. A holiday. A break for a long time, get away from all of it. This country. Just go and don’t come back.” Readers may leave feeling emotionally drained and incomplete—the book has a confusing imbalance of perspective in which various side characters are followed closely but perhaps only once. Nevertheless, Hyde paints a sympathetic picture of the devastating trajectory of cerebellar ataxia, which may not be widely known but intensely affects those afflicted with the disease.

A heartrending story that may be difficult to push through.