- Diana Reid's debut novel Love and Virtue, released in 2021, was wildly acclaimed and won a number of literary awards. It thoroughly deserved them. Personally, I loved it. In her new novel her prose is far more poetic, intricate and convoluted, which unfortunately at times borders on pretentious. I was reminded of Emily Bitto's second novel Wild Abandon, which I just couldn't finish despite trying three times. (It has just been announced that it has won the 2022 Margaret and Colin Roderick Award for best literary book of the year, so what do I know?)
- Seeing Other People focuses on two sisters in their twenties, Eleanor and Charlie. Eleanor, a business consultant, is the oldest, and Charlie, a struggling actress, the more beautiful.
- A key event takes place in the first few pages. Eleanor breaks up with her boyfriend Mark because he confesses that after a night out with his mates he went home with a stripper and ‘almost’ slept with her. A disgusted Eleanor ends the relationship.
- The second micro drama involves Charlie and her rather complicated relationship with her flat mate Helen, who is a theatre director and openly gay and my favourite character. They sleep together.
- It becomes clear very early in the book that Reid is absolutely obsessed with her characters. She’s the equivalent of a school principal watching her pupils' every move. She creates a psychological drama out of rather ordinary, quotidian interactions. It's a densely painted portrait of young people with their usual emotional eruptions and anxieties. Nobody’s really at fault but everybody thinks they are, including themselves. As one character admits at one point, she is 'insufficiently self-loathing'.
- Some reviewers have named Reid as Australia's Sally Rooney. That comparison is misplaced. Rooney’s characters have much larger minds and preoccupations.
- As the novel proceeds the micro threads become quite entangled, and we're sucked into a more fascinating drama. Half-truths and lies complicate the relationships and at times come close to ending them.
- The way the novel pans out is quite satisfying, if a little sentimental. I was hoping for a hard, wrenching finale, but of course didn't get it.
(This brilliant review by Beejay Silcox is a must read)
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