Immersions by Kyle McCarthy

 

Summary (from the publisher): Taut and spellbinding, Immersions follows the aftermath of a celebrated dancer’s abrupt decision to quit her company and join an enclosed convent in France, and her younger sister’s obsessive conviction that her sister’s ex-husband is responsible.

Frances’s older sister Charley was a star of the modern dance world. But just as she was ascending, she fell in love with Johnny, an enigmatic trust fund artist, and married him. A few years into their turbulent marriage, Charley mysteriously leaves her dance company and joins an enclosed convent in Provence. Much to the shock of her family, she changes her name to Sister Anne and cuts off contact with the outside world.

Frances, a dancer herself, grew up in the shadow of her brilliant sister and is suddenly unmoored without her. From their first uneasy meeting, Frances has distrusted Johnny. Now, she is certain he had something to do with her sister’s abrupt abandonment of her art and family. When Frances discovers that Johnny has returned to New York, she reaches out to him, looking for answers and seeking confrontation. The two plunge into an ambiguous intimacy—diving ever deeper, as each tries to unlock the other's secrets. A slender and twisted tale of sexual coming-of-age and of the deep bonds of lust and loyalty, Immersions asks how we are made—and unmade—by desire.

Review: Thank you to Zando for a gifted, finished copy of this novel. 

Frances always looked up to her gifted, older sister Charlotte "Charley" who was a celebrated dancer. But when Charley falls in love with the older and wealthy Johnny, Frances is suspicious of her sister's choice. A few years after Charley marries Johnny, she abruptly leaves her dance company and joins an enclosed convent in Provence, changes her name to Sister Anne, and cuts off all communication with the outside world. Frances is shaken and unmoored without her sister and becomes convinced that Johnny had something to do with this decision. She reaches out to him and ultimately is drawn into an ever-deeper intimacy. 

Oof this is such a hard one to review. On the one hand, McCarthy's writing style is striking with great visual imagery: 

"A tall slash of a man, given to murmuring, with something frantic and fumbling about his hands."

 "A toothpick pretending to be a grad student." 

"Johnny moved like a fox, stealthy and low and quick, and his woman, graceful and nervous as a doe, picked her way through the openings."

"Her face was an ovverripe peach, as if rather than aging, she was going soft."

"Your name hung in the air between us. Your name always hung between us, but not it was a knife I was holding out before me."

McCarthy also makes some bold and interesting choices. She deliberately does not use quotation marks for any dialogue, which gave this sort of a fever dream feel to it. Much of the book is Frances directly addressing Charley. This gave the book a sense of longing and you could feel how much Frances wished she could speak to her sister and in her absence, is forced to reach out into the void, or in this case, the reader. 

I do appreciate how nuanced this book felt and in particular how layered and complex Johnny felt. On the surface, Johnny is fairly well liked and appreciated and presents as a generationally wealthy patron of the arts. But behind closed doors and in private, there is a lot more to the story. It is hinted that Johnny had a traumatic childhood and much of his behavior is driven out of his own pain. I appreciated that McCarthy didn't present him as just a one note, obviously bad character. I think the real story is more complicated. 

On the other hand, I have a hard time rating this book because its plot made me so distinctly uncomfortable. Obviously, that is the point, but there was something about the sexual predatory behavior and dark secrets we learn that put me on edge. In other words, I did not enjoy reading this or the feelings this book gave me. The whole time, I was uneasy and waiting for something even darker to happen and while I'm glad this mostly resolved in a good way, I was so unhappy with Frances's choices and her decision to get close to Johnny. It felt like both a betrayal of her sister but also a deeply disappointing choice as she doesn't like Johnny from the time she first meets him and knows he is suspect and does it anyway. 

I was so perplexed by this book and curious about what exactly the author was going for that I did attend a zoom interview with her where she was discussing this book. It was interesting that this is loosely based on the Bluebeard fairy tale, and I think that makes a lot of sense thinking about the plot. This also said this is a book about seeking information and understanding and that certainly seems true from Frances's perspective. Finally, she talked about how this is about moving forward on your own terms. And I do think that happened. But I still walked away with a lot of questions and unresolved feelings about the book and its plot. 

Stars: 3