From 1 year to todayRobin Benway
I’m used to talking about some kind of condolences. It starts with a crush loss. The rest of the novel explores the question of how to proceed. We trace a sad personality through the depth of pain and self-destruction, emptiness and defeat, vivid or faded memories, and the happiness of being alive and seeing everything anew. — The character has reached a place where we can bear to turn our backs.
The National Book Award-winning Robin Benway overturns this structure with her new novel, A Year to the Day. Instead of following the familiar trajectory, Benway’s novel unfolds in chronological order, away from fragile acceptance and towards the first life-changing tragedy.
The novel begins exactly one year after Nina, the sister of the novel’s 16-year-old hero Leo, died in a car accident. Leo’s sorrow is no longer fresh, but still powerful. Leo was in the car with Nina’s boyfriend East when he was attacked by a drunk driver, but Leo doesn’t remember what happened. She suffers from her memory loss, and she can only remember that they were at the party and her sister died. Maybe those lost memories aren’t what she wants, Leo’s mother says. But Leo isn’t so sure, and East refuses to share what he remembers.
Benway’s kindness to her character and their sadness permeate the story. Leo’s mother spends most of her day in bed, but she’s always in love. East offers levity, enjoying the workbook of sorrow that well-meaning people send to Leo’s home. In an inspirational scenario, Leo’s father and stepmother have a baby born in the same hospital where Nina died. Her entrance to her family exists in contrast to the exit from Nina’s family. “In fact, we should have been here today,” Leo says when she first embraced her sister. “I’m really sorry, I’m the one you’re stuck with, but I’ll do my best because there was a really good teacher.”
Benway’s prose reflects Leo’s efforts to unite himself. It is restrained, discreet, and unaffected or dramatic. And when Leo loses control, her language shifts with her and becomes urgently energized. During the battle with East, Leo’s anger was “very white and her sorrow was so frozen that both were burning in her.” While at her roller link, a flash of her memory caught her, “Leo closed her eyes to the light and sound, grabbed her carpeted wall, and through the open window of her car. I feel a warm breeze. “
With the “A Year to the Day” timeline flipped, there’s a lot to be expected from the reader. I want to know how the characters appeared at the beginning of the book. To know exactly what happened on the night of the accident and why East refused to talk about it. However, the structure is complicated, the information is obscured, and suspense can occur in areas where it is not needed. From time to time, I wondered if these brilliant characters didn’t need an exhibit of such structure when they were sad.
Still, backward chronology is a bold and valuable experiment. We move away from the secret novel — now we know that Leo may never remember — and so we are colluding to withhold the devastating truth. I feel it. Ultimately, “A Year to the Day” is a moving quest for how the mind punishes and protects, and that we can be loved and loved, even for a short time. It reminds me of how lucky I am.
Nina LaCour is written for kids, teens and adults. Her latest novel is “Yerba Buena”.
A YEAR TO THE DAY, Robin Benway | 335pp. | HarperTeen | $ 18.99
