Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
Gretel hasn’t seen her mother in sixteen years, giving her plenty of time to forget her canal-side upbringing. However, a phone call will soon bring them together and bring back vivid memories of those wild years, including the secret language that Gretel and her mother created the strange boy, Marcus, who spent that last winter on the boat, and the creature that is rumoured to be under the water that is drawing nearer. In the end, Gretel will have no choice but to go farther into their past, where ancient prophecies and family secrets will all cruelly resurface.
Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
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The writing in this chilling book is incredibly dramatic and vivid. The story is delivered in an intriguing and almost mystical manner, which gives it its great originality. The connection between a young woman named Gretel and her mother, Sarah, who left Gretel when she was sixteen, is the subject of Daisy Johnson’s first complete novel. Gretel has to deal with Sarah’s drinking, her failing mind, and a variety of unsettling memories after finding her mother again after more than ten years. With time jumps and first-person, second-person, and third-person storylines, some of which Gretel has imagined.
We learn about Sarah and Gretel’s obsession with the dreaded “bonak,” a canal monster that Sarah believes is to blame for all of the world’s problems. We also learn about Gretel’s childhood on a canal boat; the arrival of a young woman with sexual identity issues who has started dressing as a man and calling herself Marcus; Gretel’s search for her mother, which prompts her to also search for Marcus; and Sarah and Gretel’s encounter with Marcus. What makes it most remarkable is how it conjures up a world that feels somewhat modern but is actually rather foreign to most of us.
People who live on canals and frequently eat fish they have caught themselves or rabbits they have hunted inhabit this planet, which represents those at the bottom of the social hierarchy of British society (it is set in England). While trans concerns are currently prominent in our social and political lives, Everything Under uses a story structure that is centuries old: the framework of the youngster who is unsure of who they are. The child who, in a sense, the Fates have decided will do exactly what everyone was attempting to avoid. Johnson uses lovely language as well. It conjures up a very strange world that nevertheless appears to be a natural one. It’s done extremely well.
