In all forms of media, the spoiler alert has barreled into common usage. It has become necessary because we’re living in an age when information is diffused at such a violent pace. With the privilege of speed comes great sensitivity.
Every city has something like this, the anchor tenant in many city-dweller’s mental maps of their neighborhood. But in many places, you’d be laughed out of the building for calling it a “convenience store”. It’s a bodega. It’s a packie. It’s a party store. What you call the store on the corner says a lot about where you live.
If your idea of a great read requires a rousing plot line, Claire-Louise Bennett’s “Pond” probably isn’t going to float your boat. But if you’re excited by the kind of writing that can transport you deep into the oddly beguiling, meditative reflections of a woman living alone in a thatched-roof, stone cottage on Ireland’s Atlantic coast, then this uncategorizable book will leave you positively buoyant.