The Carmichael sisters don’t like each other. They hate their famous architect father. One could argue that they’re not that fond of themselves, either. All of this simmering loathing makes Julia Armfield’s Private Rites a challenging read. Challenging, yes, but understandable. What I don’t understand is that Armfield decided to set this family drama in a world drowning in endless rain and to populate it with a mysterious cult that follows the youngest Carmichael sister around. I’m going to keep an eye out for other reviews of this book that can, hopefully, help me figure this out.
Oldest sister Isla works as a therapist. Ever since she was a little girl, with her cold, combative father and increasingly mentally ill mother, Isla was the one who kept things organized. Consequently, she can be a bit patronizing and far too concerned about appearances. Her younger sister, Irene, is the angry one. She resents everyone and everything, it seems. Talking to her is a minefield of perceived insults. Youngest sister Agnes is a cipher, though her sisters seem to think she’s a flake. Agnes’s phone is never on and she runs from anything that might tie her down.
The sisters take turns telling us their stories. I was glad for this because their inner thoughts were much more illuminating than their spiteful conversations with each other in the wake of their father’s death. The sisters reveal scenes from their childhood that show us exactly why they detest their father and why only his death could bring them back together, at the house he built to stay above rising water. Isla, as usual, is trying to observe the niceties while Irene lashes out reflexively. Agnes is mostly a ghost, though I can’t blame her for this given how fraught her sisters’ relationship is.
Some books stand out to me not because of their characters or their plot but because of the mood they invoke. Private Rites, to me, is a mood book. That mood is a blend of frustration and despair. (There may be a German word for this.) Everyone knows that the time to fix the environment is long past. Nothing can ever be normal again. But no one is doing anything: not the government, not the corporations, not the people themselves. People still go to work, even if they have to use ferries and water taxis and their homes are increasingly flooding out. It’s hard to say if hardly anyone is trying to fix things or even adapt much to life on a watery planet because they think it’s someone else’s problem to fix or if they’re out of ideas.
I suppose the environmental catastrophe is a metaphor for how so many people refuse to change and just play out the roles they’re used to playing. (I’m still not sure what the point of the cult is yet.) What I don’t understand is why Private Rites has both psychodrama and environmental catastrophe (and a cult). The family drama was interesting and comprehensible; it didn’t need the heavy underscoring of the water. The flooded world thing is interesting, too, but didn’t need family drama to overshadow it (and possibly reduce its effect to metaphor).
Bookish folk, if you read this book and understand it, please let me know what I’m overlooking.