DROWNING PRACTICE – Mike Meginnis (2022)

An important part of reading is reading about reading, and so I bought this book because of a glowing review on Speculiction. Drowning Practice is part slipstream, part immediate future doom, part satire & part psychological study.

The novel’s premise would be ideal for a movie or tv-series. Everybody on the planet dreams the same thing in the same night: in a few months there will be a flood and everybody will drown. Most people take their dream for truth, and Mike Meginnis examines what would happen to our society when most expect imminent demise. He does that by zooming in on three broken characters: an addicted, anxious novelist, her 13-year old daughter and the girl’s father, a controlling government spy/hippie.

Meginnis started writing the book out of a frustration with existing apocalyptic stories, and I have to say he did succeed in writing something that is both compelling and completely non-generic – unlike the first episode of HBO’s The Last of Us, to name just one thing.

There are many ingredients that make Drowning Practice a succes.

Biggest draw are the characters. Lyd, Mott and David are realistic and recognizable, even though they have severe personal issues. Meginnis’ main focus is on how certain people try to dominate others emotionally: both the mother and the father are quite cunning on that front. I’d go as far and say the book is connected to Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, in the sense that this book too is a thinly disguised story about mental problems, resulting in a similar eerie atmosphere. It didn’t surprise me when I read in an interview that Meginnis has suffered from a deep depression – like Jackson.

Meginnis makes this aspect of psychological horror something that is both timeless and very much about our time, like when he has a character parrot discourse about personal growth, exposing a culture high on its own catchphrases & meritocratic therapeutic delusions.

I also felt a connection to the work of visual artist Paul McCarthy, as Meginnis has his characters move inside a social landscape of decay, dysfunction and a certain form of timid excess. I use the adjective ‘timid’ here because Meginnis never outdoes it, striking a difficult balance between certain satirical elements and realism, and between genre stuff and originality. McCarthy’s video work comes to mind because he also exposes – admittedly much more explicitly – dark undercurrents in American society.

Because of precise character development and balanced world building, the emotions Meginnis writes about get ample room to thrive. Drowning Practice indeed is a story about a mother and a daughter, a perspective rarely seen in apocalyptic fiction, which so often relies on masculinity. Another reference could be Dexter Palmer’s Version Control – which is also about parents and the times we live in.

At first I was bothered by the meta-aspect of the novel: a writer writing books about writers writing books seems like somebody flogging a dead horse. But I have to admit Meginnis pulls it off – probably because he resents the trope himself too. It’s undeniable writing is a real drive for some people. There’s tons of people that feel the need to create, just for themselves, even if the world would end. It also adds an interesting dynamic between the mother and the daughter: one a once successful author gone cynical, the other an aspiring one, giving rise to a fresh iteration of the tried and tested theme of parental projection. And finally, it allows Meginnis to play a bit with an idea that maybe would not work as a fully fleshed out novel, but works very much as a sketch of one, an idea that adds even more depth to this particular mother-daughter relationship.

Mike Meginnis’ second book is not a full on masterpiece – even if I can’t really put my finger on why I hesitate dubbing it that way. It’s for novels like this Goodreads should allow half stars. As it is, I’ll give it 5 stars there. On this here blog, at the end of this here review, it is a 4.5 – no mean feat at all. Drowning Practice is a cleverly constructed, deeply human and timely book.

It won’t be for everybody: it’s a bit quirky & dreamy, and, like Jesse wrote on Speculiction, dark indeed. And even though Meginnis writes about flawed characters and flawed times, he keeps moral & political indignation off the page, making it harder for some readers to cling to something they know – the comforting feeling of tribe, the outrage of ideology. And that in itself, is obviously also a political act.

 

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