LoveReading Says
Told in three parts, Anna Metcalfe’s Chrysalis is hands-down exceptional. Shot-through with unnerving elements of mystery, this masterwork of incisive, psychologically profound storytelling unveils a young woman’s transformation from the perspectives of three people who long to be close to her. Three people whose lives and outlooks are changed irrevocably by her, leaving them feeling husk-like and overawed in her wake. In the words of her mother: “She has a power over the people who find her; once you’ve known her, it’s hard to go back to a time before”.
Chrysalis is also a story about agency, taking control of body and mind, and the fine lines between fortitude, self-preservation, solitude and isolation. And all this is achieved through a true page-turner that demands to be read in one intense, enriching session.
In Part One we see through Elliot’s eyes as he’s drawn to a newcomer to his gym. A woman who’s strong, direct, utterly unselfconscious, and not afraid to take up space with her body. He’s immediately in her thrall: “I got the impression that she didn’t care what we thought. She wasn’t here to play a part in someone else’s spectacle because she had her own goals in mind”.
Next we meet her mother, and discover the woman’s tumultuous childhood and multiple transformations that were “swift and disarming”. But still, when her daughter severs family connections, her mother remarks, “I never wanted her to leave. I wanted to come home to her for always”.
Finally, we see her through the eyes of a colleague and friend who helps her heal in the wake of an abusive relationship and witnesses her transformation into the woman Elliot is enthralled by at the gym. A woman whose strength and online persona has garnered a cultish following of people who “don’t want change or process, they want something permanent they can trust”.
These days, her mother remarks, “some parts of her life are lived entirely in public; the rest she keeps to herself”. Her mother also regards her daughter’s reinvention online as manifesting her desire to avoid “having to confront the complexity of another human being”.
Exploring how women’s agency and control can result in retreating from the world, this remarkable novel reveals fundamental dissonances between selfhood and society with fresh, thought-provoking finesse.
Joanne Owen
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Chrysalis Synopsis
Included in Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2023
This provocative, fiercely imaginative debut follows a woman trying to slip the shackles of society by controlling her body and mind in extreme ways.
It was hard to be in the present, she said, but if her body were heavier and more in control, then her thoughts would clear and her mind would recover its power.
An enigmatic young woman drastically transforms her body, working to become bigger, stronger, and stiller in the wake of a trauma. We see her through the eyes of three people, each uniquely mesmerized by her, as they reckon with the consequences of her bizarre metamorphosis. Each of them leaves us with a puzzle piece of who she was before she became someone else. Elliot, a recluse who notices her at the gym, witnesses her physical evolution and becomes her first acolyte. Bella, her mother, worries about the intense effect her daughter's new way of life is beginning to have on others, and she reflects on their relationship, a close cocoon from which her daughter has broken free. Susie, her ex-colleague and best friend, offers her sanctuary and support as she makes the transition to self-created online phenomenon, posting viral meditation videos that encourage her followers to join her in achieving self-sufficiency by isolating themselves from everyone else in their lives.
Uncanny, alluring, and intimate, Chrysalis raises vital questions about selfhood and solitude. This daring novel asks if it is possible for a woman to have agency over her body while remaining part of society, and then offers its own explosive answer.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780385683920 |
| Publication date: |
11th April 2023 |
| Author: |
Anna Metcalfe |
| Publisher: |
Bond Street Books an imprint of Doubleday Canada |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
272 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Anna Metcalfe Press Reviews
'Unputdownable, ice-cool and wittily contemporary, Chrysalis announces Anna Metcalfe as a distinctive and daring fresh literary voice. Utterly original and with shades of Ottessa Moshfegh, Patricia Lockwood, Yoko Ogawa and Alexandra Kleeman, this brilliant portrayal of desire and transcendence had me totally entranced' Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti WOW.
'I just devoured this. What a wonderful, painful, funny novel... It's so beautiful and cruel, and summed up just perfectly by the ending - a flawless final sentence, one of the best I've ever read, it absolutely gave me chills' Avni Doshi
'Incredibly smart and totally unique... Ranging from online obsession, to mothers and daughters, to the very nature of selfhood, the whole thing is strange and warm and, crucially, very funny... I savoured every last brilliant sentence' Ruth Gilligan, author of The Butchers
'A beautifully conceived triptych, shining and modern' Lillian Fishman, author of Acts of Service
'A masterclass in character, Chrysalis is an unsettling and brilliant portrait - not just of a woman in transformation or of those who fall into her orbit, but also of a world defined simultaneously by our isolation and by our longing to connect. This is a sharply-wrought, surprisingly tender book about how our internal changes create external change... often in ways we didn't intend' Jen Silverman, author of We Play Ourselves
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