Chantel's Reviews > We Spread

** spoiler alert ** It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on elder abuse, body deterioration, grief, body mutilation, & others.

Six (6) people standing in a room, hosting a meeting with the goal of telling stories; singing songs, reminiscing, & sharing memories. Six people complete the entity at Six Cedars, a full number lingering in a small place. However, Penny feels singular, she is one; a Penny, a person, a distinct entity in the throng of others. Six Cedars is not unlike the community of the human species, always pairing, finding links, & seeking one another. Why is Penny unable to grasp that the time she held was time shared, unpossessed by the tendons’ grasp?

Reid is poised to write a good story, he has the tools to sweep a reader into the palm of his hand & whisper little syrupy words of thrill into the ear of the one who listens closely. I cannot say that this book brought me the sentiments of angst that I might assume in texts bound by the horror genre but, I can appreciate that, at face value, Penny’s plight is spellbinding. An unsuspecting 89-year-old woman is taken to a long-term care facility where she resides for three (3) years before passing away in a most melodramatic fashion; one that brings joy to those who hope to escape the confines of detritus.

Penny is introduced to the reader with prose that encumbers the atmosphere; small binding halls of a minuscule apartment; towered by possessions moulding under dust from a lifetime of action. As the main character of this book, one notes how unreliable Penny is, immediately. Though the reader is asked to trust in Penny, to believe Penny, to empathize with Penny; this is a character whom we know not, in the least. We don’t know anyone for, Penny has spent her life feeling confined by a numbers game she never sought to play & is at once unable to appreciate the value of round numbers while simultaneously seeking to venture into the woods as an odd value.

Throughout this story, separated into three (3) parts, consumed by one (1) reader, written in one tangibility, & authored by a single man; the parts come together to form a six (6), the embodiment of the heart & so, what is the essence of this book if not the decline of the essence of our lives, time.

Penny’s time is slipping away from her all the while she grapples with its meaning. One may read this entire book & note all the patterns that float around like loose anima. What is particularly delicious about this story is the revulsion of a timeline. There is no linear marker about the years the reader spends with Penny for she herself knows not one day from a moment. Though Wilde’s words regarding a single moment reflecting a lifetime of who an individual has & shall be, tied into Penny’s existence accurately, it remains a sad series of events which lead her to the realization that she has been no one for all of her time here.

For who is the main character of this book? In all the patterns that Reid presents, the ones that shape Penny into the narrator we listen to today, remain the most impactful. She reflects on memories of her father & how their partnership altered the gloom of an otherwise difficult childhood. They were simply two; an absent mother subtracting herself from the sum of their family’s parts to leave a pair, Penny & the patriarch. When she adventured into meeting new people she participated in activities numbering highly, she was part of a group. Every date with a possible suitor reflected a pair, a link, a new lane through life. The invisible man she spent all her years tied to remains the driving force behind all of the changes Penny experiences under our watch.

Even in the moments where Penny lives within her apartment alone, she is tethered to the reader, forming, once again, a pairing. So arises the struggle of the few who seek to remind themselves that they are nothing like the collective; entities set apart, always singular, solitary, alone. I should wager to say that few members of humanity have not been told that they are not alone, that their experiences bring them closer to others; these moments lived under the guise of a great stone on one’s back broken down into the pebble that is carried by all. However, how can that be true in all things? Is it not eternally frustrating to feel connected to one another? Is it enough to state that our species remain united by a specific set of biological genes, those forming the baseline for our eyes, our skeletons & our framed bodies in this life?

Penny’s struggle to make life meaningful, to have her time valued in some way, even by avoiding the watchful gaze of others—as is seen by her avoidance of an art exhibit—grants her the illusion of her power. Are the presences of Shelley & Jack antagonistic or is Penny the villain set to bring about her own demise? Who, in fact, is the antagonist of the story & whom should the reader encourage? Ultimately, what we have the opportunity to read is that neither Penny nor her foes, friends, & lovers are either of these things, completely.

One is both the protagonist & antagonist of one’s own life. The time we have is ours, though shared into fractions & slivers between the people we encounter & the things we come to love. As we watch Penny’s agility, maneuvering her way in the meeting circle, we learn that this character is shadowed by her own desire to be solicitous. She boasts about being able to be alone, living by herself, & caring for all her needs. Would the story be read the same if Penny had been 43 or maybe 13? Would her self-imposed solitary restrictions be viewed as matured action to the betterment of the self or, a weathered lingering of comforts yet to be fulfilled?

It is not wrong to want to be alone. I find myself with the pleasure of my own company very often, outnumbering the times I find myself in a top-heavy fraction of folks. Yet, I do not attempt to dissuade myself from the truth. I am a single being in a slew of my species. Next door there are people & if they are gone, down the street there are others. Across an ocean are more still who laugh & find enjoyment in the same things I do, even if we never meet, I know this to be true. Enjoyment & comfort found in one’s own company is certainly better & grander than the company Penny seemed to share with a man she felt nickelled into spending her time with.

Yet, all this can be said for many things. Why did Penny keep mementos from the past? Why were her hallways lined with tangible objects that could trip her, & cause her cuts & bruises? Why did she need to be reminded of the tactful things she did in life? Why was her memory not enough? Part of our time in this life is split between what is happening & what our mind has the ability to replay. Never to be seen in the same way again, we have the illustrious vivacious instances waddle around in our membrane in an attempt to bring back what once was.

The impossibility of relying on a tissue so fragile with abilities so outstanding is humbling. Our minds wander when we forget to remember & they linger in confines when we attempt to rekindle a thought we wanted to think. The description of exuberance & dusk within Penny’s apartment represents all these things within the physical space. As Penny herself said, she would hate to lose her mind; her memory, the last thing that she can rely on, So, she leaves herself notes so she never has to wander through life like a unicellular organism amputated from its tissue.

Should I have to choose, I might say that my favourite aspect of this story is hidden within the dialogue. There are many cultures of people who believe that a story that takes many laneways to arrive at the end, is succulent & ripe with the information the listener needs. For, it is due to stories shared, through song, spoken language & the written word, that we begin to pour ourselves into the listener. Reading this story one might view themselves within the character of Penny & think that the author was able to see them for who they were. Someone else might find that Shelley was hopeful & kind, not unlike another person they know who was misunderstood in their appreciation for the ethereal.

Within stories we share, & whether or not Penny realized that her connection to the other inhabitants was increased by her partitioning her memories into words for them to hear, it does not change the fact that she participated in the essence of transference. It’s wonderful that Reid was able to present the extremely haunting scenarios of becoming another without delegating necessary dialogue to explain how one might adopt a pattern of speech, for example, after spending time around another person.

The tenses are both timid & dry throughout this story; Penny is no rambling soul, she knows what she lacks but, she is also hollow, unbound from any meaningful connection in her adult life. Whilst she plummets forward into recollection, the verbs constrict to seamlessly entangle the reader into her narrative. She is both speaking to the reader while also standing alone, mumbling silly parables to herself. The muffled voices intimate a literal wall between what Penny is able to comprehend & what her mind has worked itself around. Those voices could have been hers with her partner, they were also Shelley & Jack, while they could have been our own à-la “The NeverEnding Story” (1984).

Whenever Penny’s inhibitions are down before she sleeps or while she is trying to remember, she converses with those around her who shift as quickly as light into the iris. Much of what is said is didactic. The conversations read throughout this story do not necessarily appear to be mutual but rather singular monologues of expression. Hilbert truly wants others to feel & know how much he adores mathematics, so he talks about it all the time. Penny remains disconnected from what she hopes others begin to know about her & so their conversations vary in tone & emphasis. It always seems that Penny is the odd man out in a set of paired numerals.

When all is said & when time has run out, Penny’s body decomposes outside of the Six Cedars residence, a place where her mind wandered beyond the confines of what she could recall. The walls were shallow partitions, the people boogeyman of flesh once leaned upon in the throngs of self-imposed chill.

It does not matter to have an extra day a week; every single blimp, a single moment, a speeding second; rattles itself open to expose the atom of all our hours. Hands moving forward do not change the circular motion of our bodies on the circumference of the earth. It is up to the existentialist to remain satiated with the countdown believed to be numbered by mycoplasmas. For all else, more than anything, we have each other.

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Canada, & Iain Reid for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!