What an extraordinary, spare, glittering literary gem is PHANTOM DAYS (UQP 2026) by Angela O’Keefe. In her trademark prose style – ethereal, strange, beguiling and with a whimsical sense of wonder, O’Keefe presents a story of two women, mother and daughter, Maggie and Isabel, and their connection through a book. The book narrates most of the novel (very meta!)
Some beautiful quotes I chose at random:
‘A book comes into the world knowing it is a saviour, of sorts.’
‘A book is made without eyes. A book has other ways to see.’
From the book being signed by its author at a book launch, to remaining unopened and unread on a flight across the world and back again, the book witnesses the relationship between mother and daughter, it sees the danger to both, it knows it must save them, but what can it do? It is only a book.
This slim, literary novel is meditative, engaging and compelling. It celebrates the light and hope of art. It shifts between reality and a dreamlike state. It is eerie, haunting, graceful and unforgettable. It explores bodies and relationships and all the ways people know and do not know each other, all the ways people hurt, save and redeem each other. It’s about phantom pregnancies, the hint of violence like the scent of blood in the air, connections, farewells, leavings both planned and unexpected. It is an elegy to the small moments of transformation that we attend to and which make up our lives.
As with her previous novel, THE SITTER, O’Keefe wastes not a word. Moving, tender, warm, heartbreaking, hopeful and almost spiritual, PHANTOM DAYS will resonate and reverberate long after the last page is turned. A truly gorgeous novel crafted with skill and a touch of magic.