Synopsis
From a provocative new literary talent, a hilarious and haunted novel featuring an unlikable protagonist grappling with grief, inheritance, and the ghosts of his past
We meet our ill-tempered protagonist—the story’s titular “brat”—at a low moment, but not yet at rock bottom. The Gabriel of the novel is mourning the death of his father as well as a recent breakup, and struggling to finish writing his second book. Alone and aimless, he agrees to move back into his parents’ house to clear it out for sale. Here, the clichés end.
Gabriel has trouble delivering on his promise as the moldy, overgrown house deteriorates around him, so does his own health, and large sheets of his skin begin to peel from his body at a terrifying rate. In fragments and figments, Gabriel takes us on a surreal journey into the mysteries of the family home, where he finds unfinished manuscripts written by his parents which seem to mutate every time he picks them up, and a bizarre home video that hints at long-buried secrets.
Strange people and figures emerge—perhaps directly from the novel’s embedded fictions—and despite his compromised state (and his more successful brother’s growing frustration) Gabriel is determined to try to make sense of these hauntings. Part ghost story, part grief story; flirting with the autofictional mode while sitting squarely in the tradition of the gothic, Brat crackles with deadpan humor and delightfully taut prose.
Smith’s arrival heralds the next generation of fiction writers—formally inventive, influenced by the rhythms of the internet, and infused with a particularly Gen Z sense of alienation. Irreverent and boundary-pushing, but not for its own sake, the novel that follows is muscular yet lyrical, riddled with paradox, and told with a truly rare and compelling clarity of voice. Brat is a serious debut that refuses to take itself too seriously.
Review
A huge, huge thank you to Penguin Press for the ARC!
Calling fans of all things meta, Gothic, and subtly upsetting, do I have a recommendation for you. Sitting amongst the ranks of books like Catriona Ward’s Looking Glass Sound, Ian Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, and Paul Tremblay’s The Pallbearer’s Club, Brat by Gabriel Smith is a stunning debut that explores the idea of perception as a choice rather than a truth. Gabriel Smith, our main character, is a struggling writer who has just lost his father. We find him in his childhood home following funeral proceedings and being tasked with preparing the house for sale. Left alone, Gabriel becomes convinced something strange is afoot; he feels as though he is constantly being watched, strange figures lurk outside his window, and the pieces of his parents’ life, their manuscripts and video tapes, continue to change with each viewing. And his skin is falling off in sheets. Smith, the author, not the character, walks a fine line of metafictional madness as we’re left wondering if anything at all we’re consuming is real, whatever that means.
The fact that our main character is indeed named the same as the author is not lost on me, further expanding the “meta-ness” of Brat. Whether this is a cathartic exercise in autobiographical fiction is only for Gabriel Smith to know as the author, but, regardless of the reasoning for this character choice, this fact only elevates this story before any events even transpire. Now, for ease of reading, I’ll refer to Gabriel as the character and Smith as the author.
Smith’s writing style and formatting of this novel immediately established a strong voice, tone, and direction while simultaneously working to characterize Gabriel as a person. Chapters, sentence structure, and prose are seemingly strictly limited to observations and reporting of events almost in a detached manner that removes Gabriel as a human being from this scenario. In ways, this style feels almost disturbing in the face of the emotional trauma we know Gabriel is experiencing. Unreliable narrators seem to thrive on inserting their bleeding emotions into a scene that colors their perception, yet Smith writes the opposite, putting the reader squarely in the driver’s seat to determine just what the hell is happening. This stylistic choice is not only bold but impressive for the sole reason that it functions so well.
For reasons that are rather hard to articulate, this is an unnerving work of fiction, yet one that I wouldn’t solely classify as horror. In fact, I would argue this is one of those books that straddles many subgenres depending on how you read it, a fact that further proves the fickleness of this story. Much like Gabriel reading his mother’s manuscript, I’m wondering myself how this will read should I pick it up again. Undoubtedly this is a modern gothic novel, but the kind of horror implicated in Brat feels as though it is the existential dread of possibly losing your mind in the wake of so much loss. And more importantly, how do you recover? Gabriel observes figures outside his window that are disturbing, to say the least, working hand in hand with the decaying state of his home. Mold, falling roof shingles, and an encroaching growth of vines breathe (possibly) malevolent life into this house that is set on swallowing itself whole. All of this is to say that this decay oddly mirrors Gabriel’s being as he continues to lose his own skin with each passing day.
One of the most brilliant connections Smith makes with this stunning novel is the irrevocable connection between body and home. Eliciting tones of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, Gabriel’s decaying physical state (and perhaps psychological) feels inherently tied to this house he has inherited, one he’s being forced to sell. The implications such a connection brings are haunting at best with an inconceivable weight placed upon Gabriel’s shoulders. To make matters even more confusing, artifacts of the life he thought he knew that were recovered in the house tell a different story. A recovered manuscript from his mother and a videotape in the attic change each time Gabriel examines them even when he shows them to his brother. This disorientation of truth exacerbates sensations of confusion and terror as there is no basis for reality, only Gabriel’s confusing perception.
And like I’ve said of other meta novels before, I have never been so happy to be so utterly bewildered. Brat’s conclusion speaks to the choices we make in determining our own reality when faced with the unthinkable. Sure, some facts of life are certain, but how we choose to feel about them, what lens to view them through, is solely up to us. Gabriel Smith writes this novel layered with meaning, depth, and an abundance of room for interpretation. Slippery in every sense of the meaning, Brat is equally thought-provoking, haunting, and compelling, a combination that delivers one of the most impressive debuts and captivates attention.
Brat by Gabriel Smith releases on June 4th from Penguin Press.
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