Echolalia
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Echolalia
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Narrated by:
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Yael Stone
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By:
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Briohny Doyle
About this listen
What could drive a mother to do the unthinkable?
Before: Emma Cormac married into a perfect life but now she's barely coping. Inside a brand new, palatial home, her three young children need more than she can give. Clem, a wilful four year old, is intent on mimicking her grandmother; the formidable matriarch Pat Cormac. Arthur is almost three and still won't speak. At least baby Robbie is perfect. He's the future of the family. So why can't Emma hold him without wanting to scream?
Beyond their gleaming windows, a lake vista is evaporating. The birds have mostly disappeared, too. All over Shorehaven, the Cormac family buys up land to develop into cheap housing for people they openly scorn.
After: The summers have grown even fiercer and the Cormac name doesn't mean what it used to. Arthur has taken it abroad, far from a family unable to understand him. Clem is a young artist who turns obsessively to the same dark subject. Pat doesn't even know what legacy means now. Not since the ground started sinking beneath her.
Meanwhile, a nameless woman has been released from state care. She sticks to her twelve-step program, recites her affirmations, works one day at a time on a humble life devoid of ambition or redemption. How can she have an after when baby Robbie doesn't?
Longlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Award
©2021 Briohny Doyle (P)2021 Penguin Random House AustraliaWhat listeners say about Echolalia
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Josie Jo
- 18-06-2021
Some incredible insights and a few frustrations along the way
I discovered this book while listening to an interview with the author. The subject intrigued me as did the passion of the author, Briohny Doyle.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue listening to the book after the first few minutes. Heavy, overblown descriptive prose, the sort of writing you might submit to your English Literature teacher to score points when you are 16. But I continued.
One of the issues with the book is the clunky use of flashbacks and flash forwards or “Before” and After”. Confusing and almost taunting the reader into feeling too dumb to keep up. You can practically hear a sing-song “I know something you don’t know”. Except that we know too much because of how the book had been promoted. The end result meant I wasn’t feeling a sense of building anticipation but a desire to listen to those chapters at speed 1.5x.
While the “After” chapters can be frustrating, the “Before” chapters are spookily brilliant. A few times I found myself almost looking around wondering if the author had somehow had access to my life, my brain. Particularly regarding aspects of motherhood, and in the case of the character Pat, middle age. Even the uncomfortable moments of sexual harassment by boys at school and in the workplace rang too true. There is a terrific exploration of class in Australian society which we often try to deny exists.
It becomes a gripping story and certainly more enjoyable when the Before and After chapters begin to converge. The use of climate change as a character in its own right was also deftly rendered.
The narration was pleasant, well-paced and appropriate to the story.
Overall I would recommend this book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Leis
- 19-06-2022
Difficult but raw depiction of PPD
The author set a bleak and claustrophobic atmosphere for the characters which became increasingly suffocating as the main characters mental health deteriorated resulting in a gut punching tragedy.
Despite her actions, I was left feeling both frustrated and pitying of the main character and anger at the refusal of her family to accept her mental illness.
This is a terrifying description of what can happen when women are left unsupported during the difficult years of motherhood.
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