One of our favourite reads from the year so far is the new novel by Ali Benjamin – The Smash-Up.
The novel is available for purchase here.
Rare is the novel that is able to delicately and competently handle feminism, political activism, rape culture or the intricate workings of modern families – Ali Benjamin’s novel artfully handles all this and more, in her phenomenal 2021 novel The Smash-Up that is fast queued up to be one of our favourite novels of the year so far. Focussing on the years after the Trump election and the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, the novel is a compulsive, satirical look at protest and America. The novel focusses on Ethan Frome and his relationship with the three women he lives with. Frome used to be the co-founder of a lucrative and immensely innovative media start-up – Bränd – but moved to Starkfield, Massachusetts, giving up his share in the company when his wife refused to move to Los Angeles. Zo, his wife, has been transformed by her newly found political activism, into a barely recognisable ball of fury, centred around the confirmation for a Supreme Court Justice and whipped up by her activist sisterhood – All Them Witches. The novel also deals with his interactions with his hyperactive, Wicked-obsessed daughter Alex and her live-in babysitter Maddy – a blue-haired millennial, making her way through an online gig economy on TenSpot.
Ali Benjamin’s debut novel takes inspiration from Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton’s classic story about a small-town love triangle, yet broadens the perspective. Though the actual links to the original inspiration are a bit heavy-handed (the town and protagonist’s names are both the same) still, but this is forgiven for the generally delicate and artful way that she weaves the story. Indeed, the core of Wharton’s novel – the disintegration of the protagonist’s marriage – is shifted to the background in this story and only reaches a proper examination and culmination in the epilogue, instead issues around #MeToo, political activism and learning disabilities are placed to the fore. All of the characters are deeply sympathetic, yet also deeply complicated and layered and Benjamin does a phenomenal job of creating a narrative that is compulsive to the final page, immensely engaging, uncomfortable at times, this is a novel that you’ll be wanting to discuss with those around you, offering an eye-opening satirical commentary on modern activist culture. An important read.
