A Review of Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s Starling Days (Overlook Press, 2020).

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I remember enjoying Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s debut Harmless Like You, so I was happy to see she put out another novel: Starling Days (Overlook Press, 2020)! Let’s let the official marketing description get us off the ground:

“On their first date, Mina told Oscar that she was bisexual, vegetarian, and on meds. He married her anyhow. A challenge to be met. She had low days, sure, but manageable. But now, maybe not so much . . . Mina is standing on the George Washington Bridge late at night, staring over the edge, when a patrol car drives up. She tries to convince the policeman she’s not about to jump, but he doesn’t believe her. Oscar is called to pick her up. With the idea of leaving New York for London—a place for Mina ‘to learn the floorplan of this sadness’—Oscar arranges a move. In London, Mina, a classicist, tries grappling with her mental health issues by making lists. Of WOMEN WHO SURVIVED—Penelope, Psyche, Leda. Iphigenia, but only in one of the tellings. Of things that make her HAPPY—enamel coffee cups. But what else? She at last finds a beam of light in Phoebe, and friendship and attraction blossom until Oscar and Mina’s complicated love is tested. A gorgeously wrought novel, variously about love, mythology, mental illness, Japanese beer, and the times we need to seek out milder psychological climates, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s Starling Days—written in exquisite prose rich with lightly ironic empathy—is a complex and compelling work of fiction by a singularly gifted young writer.”

So, I hate making slippery comparisons, but as I moved further and further in the text, I couldn’t but think of the movie The Break-Up, which starred Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. It’s pretty clear early on in the text that Oscar and Mina’s relationship is on the rocks. Buchanan immediately cues us into Mina’s fragile state, especially when Oscar has to leave London to help out with some business dealings related to his father. Mina, while she’s on her own in London, finds herself gravitating toward Phoebe. This occurrence is not a surprise, as Buchanan’s third person narrator continually provides us a strong sense of the attraction that Mina already feels. It seems only a matter of time before Mina is falling for Phoebe, or at least she’s becoming incredibly attached. For his part, Oscar is wrestling with how to remain in a relationship with someone who has changed, at least in terms of mental health. So, the novel really shows us how a once in-love couple starts to drift apart. Buchanan’s most compelling depiction appears in her razor-sharp ability to show exactly how a couple eventually disintegrates. Yet, in terms of plotting, this kind of narrative has a sort of retrogression that does not always proceed with the kind of alacrity that a reader might want. Buchanan must always be lauded for her careful and meticulous depiction of depression; her narrative does much to remind us that people must deal with depression cannot simply take a pill and feel better, nor is it simply a trick of changing one’s perspective. Mina’s own obsession with the women who survive the myths is not only an academic one. It’s clearly a way for her to ponder the challenges she faces herself: why should she live? what is the point of her existence? These questions bog her significantly down. Buchanan doesn’t leave us with a sentimental ending, but there is just enough of a glimmer of hope that we have the sense that Mina mind find her way out of quagmire that is depression.

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/starling-days_9781419743597/