This absorbing debut novel about writing takes its cue from 'Mrs. Dalloway'

Transcript

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, was in the mood for something different this week. She found it unexpectedly in a novel about plunging deeply into Shakespeare's sonnets. Here's Maureen's review of "Practice," the debut novel by Rosalind Brown.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: Trying to write - that telltale phrase usually indicates that there's more trying than writing going on. The main character of Rosalind Brown's debut novel, "Practice," is an Oxford undergrad named Annabel, who is trying to write an essay on Shakespeare's sonnets. The essay's due the following day, and Brown's novel spans the tense 24 hours before that looming deadline. Annabel holds herself to a rigid trying-to-write schedule. Rise at 6, drink peppermint tea, water and, eventually, the glory of coffee. At fixed times she does yoga, meditates and goes for a solitary walk. All throughout the day, Annabel reads, scribbles notes and catches her wandering mind entertaining sexual fantasies. She also dreads writing an essay that, as she puts it, will fling itself against the mystery of the sonnets, only to dissolve like foam.

"Practice" is an odd, absorbing little novel about an unusual subject, the act of reading and thinking deeply about literature. It works because it doesn't try to be a bigger story than it is, and because it's concise - just shy of 200 pages, many of them only a brief paragraph long. It also works because Brown herself is such a vivid writer. Here, for instance, is Brown's third-person narrator peering into Annabel's mind as she thinks about the challenge of saying something fresh about Shakespeare's sonnets.

(Reading) For basic sense, you can read each of Shakespeare's sonnets in a minute or two - for a little more chewiness and analysis, five or six minutes. The trouble is keeping them apart. Shakespeare wrote them over many years, probably. And here she is, trying to rustle up a theory in two days and hook it convincingly on. Annabel takes a sip of the hot, clear, brownish water, tasting grimly of good health. Last year, her tutor Sara, a medievalist, advised all her students to spend as many hours as they could simply sitting with the text. Don't keep your pen in your hand; just pick it up when you really need, or else your pen will get ahead of your thoughts. So she is spending time with these poems, which are better company than people. They take your shape willingly, but still lightly, like a duvet does.

That longish passage gives you an idea of how this novel meanders through Annabel's day, spent mostly close reading in a room of one's own. Catch that literary allusion, please. Virginia Woolf, particularly her own day-in-the-life novel "Mrs Dalloway," is clearly Brown's model for how to capture fleeting insights, as well as random flotsam and jetsam generated by the brain at work. Because "Practice" is set in the winter of 2009, Annabel isn't tempted by the many distractions we now have within reach on our laptops. But even without the undeniable lure of dog videos, online shopping and Wordle, Annabel is led astray plenty by what Brown calls little wisps of resistance - the excessive heat of the radiator in her room, the jangle of a landline phone and the boyfriend on the other end of it.

For me, "Practice" offers a refreshing midsummer's break from the sweeping, socially engaged fiction that understandably dominates our own anxious time. It's an unapologetically small, inward-looking and, yes, privileged story. In the novel's final pages, Annabel at last writes her essay's first sentence, which is excellent. Whether you think that sentence redeems all the self-denial and obsessive behavior that Annabel poured into it will determine whether "Practice" is the novel for you.

DAVIES: Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed "Practice" by Rosalind Brown. On tomorrow's show, we talk with producers of "Two Families" (ph), a new Frontline documentary hosted by Bill Moyers. It follows two families from Milwaukee over a 34-year period as they navigate the economic winds of changing times, struggling to stay out of poverty. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair.

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DAVIES: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering help this week from Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.

(SOUNDBITE OF BILL EVANS TRIO'S "ORSON'S THEME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.