In all three of her novels, Alice Robinson demonstrates a keen curiosity about the natural world and how it is changing; an analysis of the tremendous cost and the absolute joy of parenting; and a sharp and original (often dystopian or futuristic) psychological thriller narrative. IF YOU GO (Affirm Press 2024) aligns with these themes and takes the reader for a compelling journey in domestic science fiction.
The setting is contained and close, with only two main characters: Esther and Grace (although Robinson uses memories and flashbacks to flesh out their histories). Esther wakes in an unfamiliar place with a breathing tube in her throat, no idea of where she is, how she got there, what has happened, or who is the mysterious woman Grace, the only other person around. Her first thought is that she has been severely injured in an accident and that Grace must be a nurse in a hospital. But as the days pass, and nobody else appears, and the limitations of the facility become apparent, Esther becomes more and more suspicious of Grace and her motives.
All Esther wants is to get back to her young children, Clare and Wolfie, who she recalls with crystal clarity. Gradually other memories return – the dissolution of her marriage; the unrelenting difficulty and pressure of early motherhood; the complicated relationship with her own parents. Feelings of disappointment, regret, longing and fear overwhelm her, but she is physically too weak to do anything much other than what Grace tells her (or allows her) to do.
Robinson is a skilled writer and her exploration of motherhood, the parent / child bond, the choice between work and family (and the associated guilt, no matter what or how you choose), the long tail of identity and inheritance, the ways in which we shape our children, the ways we lose ourselves along the way, and the complex pattern of relationships that often repeat over time, is a triumph.
The ending felt a little rushed and not wholly satisfying. I wished for more for Esther, and also Grace. After an astounding twist, my engagement with each of them took a sharp turn, and I am (still) desperate to know why they made the choices they did, how it turned out for them, and what the wider picture of the world might have been at the time. But perhaps this is the point: every ending is ambiguous; history is only the present seen from the future; life is circular; and we cannot know now what we don’t know.
I love this line: ‘But in the end, I had only really conjured a future not dissimilar from my own life. A failure of imagination. It was cold comfort, the knowledge that this is what all well-meaning parents do for their children, uselessly: prepare them for a future completely modelled on the past.’