In many ways, Eugenie Montague’s “Swallow the Ghost” feels like three separate novels. That’s what makes her debut novel so imaginative — and also so frustrating.
The story’s center is Jane Murphy, who works at a New York social media startup on an Internet novel that’s become a viral hit through social media posts where elaborate backstories about its characters are formed.
But Murphy’s story and a tragic event are told through three interlocking sections. The first focuses on Jane. The second focuses on Jesse, a former journalist working as an investigator for a law firm. The third focuses on Jeremy, the pretentious, Kafka-quoting novelist and sometimes boyfriend of Jane’s.
The writing style and genre shifts with each section, but Montague’s novel at its heart explores memory in the digital era. It’s a promising concept but feels uneven.
Montague’s novel is filled with beautiful prose that’s hard to forget, and poses intriguing questions about how someone is remembered. The interactions between Jesse and his mother, who he cares and who has dementia, are some of the most simply heartbreaking moments in the novel.
But there are other portions of the novel that meander, especially the final section of the book that is framed as a transcript of a conversation with Jeremy at an bookstore event. The conversation reveals more about Jane and also about the questions the novel poses, but it also slows down the momentum of the prior section focused on Jesse and the mystery he was investigating.
Though the approach falls short at times, it’s an ambitious one that leaves readers much to think about and introduces Montague as an inventive new voice.
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