November Book Review:

Brood by Jackie Polzin

Reviewer: Chelsea Leigh

     This month, I read Brood by Jackie Polzin. This being her debut novel, Polzin has a history of teaching and being a parent. This book reveals the author to be someone who can see deep into the mundane to pull out the wonder hidden there. Her first work was received well by critics so I imagine we will be seeing more of her in the future.

In Brood, we watch our unnamed narrator attempt to keep her four chickens alive over the course of a year. We also learn about who she is and how she interacts with the world. We might never learn her name but we learn that she is a witty, loving, and introspective person. We learn about her relationships with her husband, neighbors, and her best friend. We see her grieve and cope and learn. The book reads a bit like a diary or a memoir. It feels as though we are following the narrator throughout her life and we are privy to her thoughts. She’s a bit of a philosopher and looks beyond the surface of everything she does. Cleaning a house becomes a reflection on the temporary state of cleanliness and it’s disruption of life’s natural untidiness. Assigning names to her chickens leads to her considering a chicken’s ambivalence towards what they are called.

At the end of the day, however, I don’t feel as though I’ve gained much from reading this book. That is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it. Just that it left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied. At first, her reflections feel insightful and creative. Then as the book progresses they begin to feel a bit pretentious and self-centered. I appreciated learning about the care of chickens but some of the narrators assumptions about her fellow humans felt a bit high-handed or narrow-minded.