The author acknowledgement at the end of the novel reveals that No One Is Talking About This is not just fiction, but autobiographical fiction, an exorcism of grief perhaps, and written during the pandemic which to me, would have seemingly heightened the urgency within the author to purge, get it all out, and then see what rhythm the heart beats to after it’s all done. I liked the stream of consciousness technique in this part far more than the preceding one, the urgency of the situation was enhanced through the use of this narrative style. Still written in the same style, but the protagonist is no longer online, she has a family crisis, she abandons her former daily existence in preference to being present for her sister, who is experiencing an extremely heartbreaking situation. The narrative in part two has a distinct shift in tone and intent. In this first part, I felt the novel was too much, it tried too hard with the irony, the comedy, and the shock value, rendering it tiresome. It confused the intent, I felt, and put me in a situation where I had to admit that I honestly had no idea what she was even talking about most of the time. There is no doubting that Patricia Lockwood writes beautifully, but for me, this infusing of poetry into the narrative of this particular novel, didn’t really work for me. As a poet, the writing is at times very, well, poetic. I didn’t particularly enjoy this first part, but I do see what the author was intending, and I can appreciate the way in which she has achieved this. There’s a whole lot of Twitterverse language and inside jokes that went right over my head my Twitter feed is carefully curated to the bookish universe and I simply don’t spend enough time on there to get sucked into anything else. The narrative in the first part of the novel reads like a Twitter feed.
Her life is spent online, she doesn’t have a job, she simply posts, scrolls, posts again, keeps on scrolling. There’s nothing at all about her that I can relate to. This is a woman who spent three days photographing her period in motion over some brown pipe cleaners so she could post it. In some fantasy world that does not resemble the world I live in, she’s now flown all over the world to speak on…well, I don’t really know what she speaks on. The protagonist, who remains unnamed, as do all of the characters, is some sort of online personality, famous for nothing other than a witty tweet that went viral. At only 200 pages and split into two parts, it’s not a particularly long read, but it certainly makes its impact. Stylistically, it’s an interesting novel, written using the narrative technique of stream of consciousness writing.
No One Is Talking About This is her debut novel, much awaited by her fans, particularly those who enjoyed her 2017 memoir, Priestdaddy. Patricia Lockwood is an American poet and writer, described by some as the ‘poet laureate of Twitter’.
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