Chrysalis

Product Information

Did I like this style? I’m not sure. This is a difficult book to distil, and I don’t know that I have actually understood its meaning or taken away its essence. I tried to grasp some philosophy but its like trying to cradle sand in your hands. Chrysalis might qualify as the most creative debut novel written in the past several years. The reason is simple: unlike novels like Sara Pascoe's Weirdo or Sheena Patel's I'm a Fan, Anna Metcalfe doesn't employ the usual format of having her thirty-something female protagonist tell her own story; instead, the young British author uses a trio of people in her protagonist's life to do the telling, a technique that's refreshing and very effective. Once again, I heard the receptionist point her in the direction of the changing rooms. Then, when Simon was finally located, he too asked if she wanted to change her clothes. One of the beauties of Chrysalis: the story isn't only about Nicola but the ways Nicola impacts the lives of those around her, particularly the novel's three narrators.

It was good to look at her. Everything about her suggested power and strength. Her form was perfect. The angles were precise, rounded neatly at the corners by the muscle she’d built. Her hair was looped in a knot at the top of her head. Plant-like tendrils drifted down around her face. She did everything slowly, taking long deep breaths, working through the difficult transitions with grace and ease. A new song started playing.

Advance Praise

Deliciously timely... [ Chrysalis] raises questions about all sorts of themes including solitude, influence and agency. The big one is of course: how well do we really know anyone? [Anna] Metcalfe is a properly clever writer—she moves deftly between the voices of her narrators with ease, while her prose is assured, unforced and almost graceful.” — AnOther Magazine A man who sees the woman in the gym and get a front seat view into how she transforms her body. He sees her on her first day in the gym and how she transforms both in the gym and in personal setting… because they start dating.

Through the three point of view we basically piece together who the character is and her motivation behind her transformation. I loved that the author took us through each stage, even though it wasn’t told the character herself and I think that is what made it very intriguing. JA: In the gym, too, the themes of gender and power are introduced. I love that the main character wears a full-on blouse to the gym and is fine with it, and doesn’t move when the trainer encourages her to stretch on the mats.I also thought a lot about the necessity of performing some sort of victimhood in the face of trauma in that it is almost required, I think, that someone might appear damaged or might perform their victimhood in a way that makes their trauma legible to others. Here, we have a protagonist who has experienced trauma, but is refusing to perform any kind of victimhood. She only really offers us tiny moments where she’s willing to exhibit vulnerability. In the end, our main character decides to cut out all relationships and focuses on not just slow living but slow moving; she is able to hold a yoga pose for hours on end. Through her dedication and YouTube videos, she amasses a small cult following who follows her lead and rejects society--perhaps, in a way, the only way a woman can be truly safe in this world? How well do you really know the people you love? What do they feel able to show you, and what do they feel compelled to hide? Is the version of a person you see, the real them, or are you projecting and just seeing what you wish to see?

It’s about the different forms of isolation and the effects that come from it, including loneliness, solitude and sometimes, independence. AM: In terms of wanting, I spend much more time than I would like to admit looking at clothes on the internet. What is actually enjoyable about that is the choosing. There is something creative and interesting about choosing and thinking oh, I could be this kind of person in this kind of dress or that kind of person in that kind of dress. Actually, if I buy the thing and it arrives, the pleasure is over. The fun bit is in the choosing, not in the having. AM: It’s very liberating. It made me start to wonder: What are the good responsibilities? And what are the bad ones? There’s a great Toni Morrison quote about how “Freedom is choosing your responsibility. It’s not having no responsibilities; it’s choosing the ones you want.” I thought a lot about that idea of what freedom is, if freedom requires the abandonment of social convention, if it requires to be free of the kind of complexity and nuance and messiness of interpersonal relationships or if freedom has to exist positively within some of that, you just have to be able to choose for yourself. This was a very strong debut novel. The success of the novel hinges on the reader engaging with the mysterious aspects of the central character; there’s no plot as such, and we’re told up front about the influencer she becomes, and so the only thing really driving the narrative is the details we’re given gradually about her past and the way she acts. This might sound like a hard sell, but Metcalfe really pulls it off - the characters are believable, their interactions are engaging and you really do find yourself caring about the little moments of intrigue. The central character’s behaviour is compellingly odd, and the sinister undercurrent running through the novel from the start is really effective - leaving you with the sense that, though you can’t entirely identify just what has happened, something dark is going on. AM: Completely. I suppose it’s embedded in the way we often talk about transformation, especially in the world of self-help. There’s a lot of discussion around how you can transform yourself, as if you exist completely in a vacuum. It would be more helpful for everyone who’s talking about transforming themselves to talk together about transforming things that might benefit everybody, transforming the social sphere. But there’s way more rhetoric about social transformation and taking control of the things you can control, that only affect you. It does suggest that we are all isolated dots that never really see each other or that you can, in some way, control everything for yourself and everything that affects you in your life. It’s just not true.AM: I thought about how any kind of historically marginalized community advocating for themselves has to start out by saying, “This is happening and we think this is wrong.” Rather than being met with a bunch of other people saying, “Yes, this is wrong, what can we do about it?” you’re often met with, “We don’t think that’s real.” Then you have to spend all this time persuading people that there is, in fact, a problem to solve, before you can even start to solve a problem. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read an ARC and give an honest review! Chrysalis tells of one unnamed woman’s self-transformation into an online phenomenon from the perspective of three other people: Elliot, who watches her obsessively in the gym; her mother Bella, who frets about the person her anxious child has grown into; and Susie, a former colleague and friend.

Susie, a work colleague, supports the protagonist when she leaves her dysfunctional relationship and her job at a law firm. Susie watches the woman develop her autonomy and train herself to be as still as possible through meditation. Her resilience becomes performative as she posts videos and launches a career as a cult figure who embraces solitude. This novel explores these and related concerns, as the life of our unnamed narrator intersects with a man she begins a relationship with, her colleague at work, and her mother. They each see different version of her, and want different things from her, in their lives.JA: There are so many systems that hold us all. It reminds me of when you were talking about buying a new dress; like do we really have to transform our whole selves? It feels like you’re chasing this other version of yourself that never really actually exists, but for a brief period of time you can pretend like if you do this one thing, you will. There’s a measure of fleeting joy to be found in that. Anna Metcalfe: I thought lots about perception. I really enjoyed how the book could explore that in it’s opening section, a lot of which takes place in a gym, partly because that seems like such a fishbowl of an environment where people are really focused on looking at themselves all the time, in all the mirrors that are everywhere, but also anxiously looking around them to see are other people running faster than them, lifting heavier weights than them. There was something helpful about having that as a setting early on in the book to establish that as a theme. It gets to weave through more subtly through the other two narrators. AM: The more I wrote this book, the more it became about responsibility itself and how we take responsibility for one another, what kinds of responsibilities we have towards the other people in our lives, particularly when the relationships are less clear. For example, colleagues or strangers or people you meet in the gym. Because she so readily rejects all the responsibilities she used to have to other people in her life, it makes us think about the responsibilities we think we ought to have. It’s surprising to see somebody who doesn’t seem to feel any. Internet is performative. Have to be seen to say the right thing. Difficult to show solidarity with someone different. She is watched by Elliot as he trains in the gym. He notices her dedication to building her body and taking up space, and he is drawn to her strength. She is observed by her mother, as she grows from a taciturn, tremulous child into a determined and distant woman, who severs all familial ties. She is observed by her former colleague Susie, who offers her sanctuary and support as she leaves her partner and her job and rebuilds her life, transforms her body, and reinvents herself online. Each of these three witnesses to the woman desires closeness. Each is left with only the husk of who she was before she became someone else: a woman on a singular and solitary path with the power to inspire and to influence her followers, for good and ill.