"The River Capture" by Mary Costello (Canongate, 2019)

An audio book. As Luke wanders around we learn in snippets about his life (and about James Joyce's). He muses, "in a drift of thoughts". He likes looking at the river - tidal though 12 miles inland. We piece together the details - he's in his mid-thirties, realised in his mid-twenties that he was bisexual, lives in a big farmhouse, a teacher on leave trying to write a book on Joyce. He had an extended affair with Maeve. He meets Ruth. We learn about Ellen (aunt, spent decades in the States, jilted almost at the altar by Ruth's father), Josie (aunt? went mute when Una fell down a well and died, died herself after chemo), Lucy (his sister in Australia), his mother who died 2 years back, Iris who misscarriaged?

Ellen life was blighted by Ruth's father about 50 years before. Ellen insists that he give up Ruth. So he does, even though she's coming round to accept his bisexuality.

Some early chapters are short stories with pattern and surprise. The later ones are in Question and Response form (like part of Ulysses?). The questions are more like sub-section headings, e.g. "How does he occupy himself for the evening?" It also has many lists - items in his studio, his books, the similarities between him and Bloom. Narrative doesn't quite disappear - there's a phone call with Ruth. If you're into "interesting facts" you're in for a treat. The author uses up ideas at a fierce pace - syphilis and creativity; multiverses; how to calculate the percentage of the human body that comes from plants. Luke goes out to look at the river - "on the water a trail of God's saliva, the glint of little fishes, the lustre of weeds and grasses, the tremelo of wind in the trees, the blood wounds of the town and its hinterlands trickling into the river, [] the drenched world made visible [] old boats and bicycles marinating in mud, bottles and cans and footballs and dolls and chicken bones and [] Madge Cockran's yellow Escort [] all washed in the blood of the river". Luke experiences epiphanies and euphoria.

The river never goes away. The term "river capture" is explained - it's when one river merges into another. In the last minute of the book "I felt my soul approaching the soul of the river ... I let my soul commingle and become the river's dream". At the end he's still alive on the bank, but he's lost his cat.

It's really 2 books. You can like one without liking the other.

Other reviews

• Hilary White
• Eilis O'Hanlon (There are chapters which tell the story more naturalistically, then the author dives back into Luke's head as one thought sparks another. He has heartburn. He remembers that pregnant women get heartburn. He recalls a child that miscarried, whether boy or girl he doesn't know. He notes that more males die in utero, and men die younger generally. He wonders if animals miscarry. He thinks of Stephen Dedalus. ... in terms of difficulty, Costello's second novel is much closer to Ulysses than Finnegans Wake, and it does, largely, reward the required effort.)
Carola Huttmann (The last third of the novel is an extended Joycean existential ramble meant to show Luke’s confused state of mind following Ellen’s revelation and her urging that he break things off with Ruth. Drowning his misery in red wine and memories of the past he sinks to ever lower depths of mental anguish.)
• Melissa Harrison (She renders Luke as a convincing blend of Leopold Bloom and a modern-day man with his own particularities. Likewise, the relationship between Luke and the tidal river, and the patterning that underlies the novel’s structure, are accomplished and satisfying; but having divided the book so strictly into two, the incoming tide that powered the first half becomes rather obstructed, and is at risk of petering out.)
• Alex Preston (beautifully crafted if obscure)
• Nick Major (The sudden "capture" of Luke’s life by another novelistic style – one that is composed of a series of long-winded questions and answers –makes for laborious reading. It is almost as if second half is composed of notes the author has made when she was creating Luke’s character, which might well be the point. Regardless of this messy ending, Costello deserves praise for her attempts at formal experimentation, ... too much of her prose is hyperbolic and vague (sex, for example, is described as "the transmutation of lowly instincts into godly essence".) Add this stylistic flaw to the other faults – the "key of life" musings, the superfluous passages about religion and Luke’s eating habits, and the mewling protagonist himself – and you end up with a rather boring novel.)
• Goodreads