Anomia

by Jade Wallace

In Euphoria, a small, fictional town that feels displaced in time and space, an affluent but isolated couple have vanished from their suburban home. Their estranged friend, Fir, a local video store employee, is the only person who notices their disappearance. When the police refuse to help, Fir recruits Fain, who moonlights as a security guard, and they set off on a seemingly hopeless search for the lost lovers. Their chance at an answer, if they can ever find it, lies on the wooded edge of Euphoria, where Slip, an elderly trailer park resident, finds a scattering of bones that cannot be identified. Distrusting everyone, Slip undertakes a would-be solitary quest to discover the bones’ identity. Yet secretly, Limn and Mal, two bored, true crime-loving teenagers from the trailer park, are dogging Slip. Determined to bring justice to the dead, Limn and Mal will instead bring the lives of all seven characters into fraught and tangled confrontation.

Beneath the familiar surface of this missing-persons novel lies an unparalleled experiment: the creation of a folkloric alternate reality where sex and gender have been forgotten. Expanding on the work of Anne Garréta’s Sphinx and Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body, and joining gender-confronting contemporaries like Joshua Whitehead’s Jonny Appleseed and Akwaeke Emezi’sThe Death of Vivek Oji, Anomia is an atmospheric exploration of a possible world, and a possible language, existing without reference to sex or gender.

Genres: Canada, Fiction

280 pages, Paperback

Published June 15, 2024

About the author

Jade Wallace (they/them) is a queer poet, fiction writer, and critic. They are the author of two poetry collections LOVE IS A PLACE BUT YOU CANNOT LIVE THERE (2023) and THE WORK IS DONE WHEN WE ARE DEAD (2026), both from Guernica Editions. Wallace's debut novel ANOMIA is out with Palimpsest Press in June 2024. Wallace is also the co-founder of MA|DE, a collaborative writing entity whose first full-length collection ZZOO is forthcoming from Palimpsest Press in 2025. More: jadewallace.ca + ma-de.ca

Reviews

[K.R. Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anomia features an otherworldly forest, a missing couple, a concerned ex-lover, a pair of inquisitive teens, an elder communing with the bones of the dead, and—the bit that’s been getting the most attention—a completely ungendered cast of characters. One of the book’s many pleasures is watching your mind try to assign hes and shes (and on what basis), but it doesn’t rest on this well-executed conceit. It’s a quietly perceptive, gentle and genuine story of human mystery.

[Jacqueline Langille · Rating 3 out of 5]

I try to read one experimental literary novel each year. This one was fine. The author doesn't mention or label gender or sex, and I wish many more novels were written that way. The setting was compelling and evocative. One writerly tic I didn't enjoy was multiple, discordant similes in one sentence (repeatedly throughout). I wanted this novel to be much more gothic than it was: promise unfulfilled.

[avery (avereads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anomia is an eerie tale of two friends that disappear without a trace in a strange small town where its citizens are devoid of gender. Part character study of a group of people all linked by this obscure mystery and part lonely sad love story, Anomia reminds us of the question we all ask ourselves about life and love: Who will miss us when we’re gone? Creating the feeling of being someone on the outside, Jade Wallace teases enough about the truth while also leaving the reader remaining just on the cusp of what transpired. Descriptive and witty, while also having a unique voice, Anomia is extremely memorable in its characters, plot, and writing style. The town of Euphoia is obscure, the forest that surrounds it even more so, creating an unsettling feeling that is constantly encroaching on the reader and more and more details about the lives of it’s citizens are revealed. While Anomia is heavy hitting, it’s also lighthearted at times and creates the perfect balance during a rollercoaster of emotions while trying to uncover this hopeless mystery. (Review originally for The Walleye)

[Mark Laliberte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing story! 🌿
Amazing cover! 🤫

[Margaryta · Rating 4 out of 5]

**REVIEW FORTHCOMING IN PRISM**

[Not Sarah Connor Writes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic book written without referencing gender or sexuality, with the author basically telling readers "see, it isn't that hard to be inclusive."

Read the full review on my blog!

Also, I am more active on Storygraph now so if you want to see what I'm read right away, follow me there!there!

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review forthcoming

[Anne Baldo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Fir still thought of those few seconds as one of life's scarce glimpses of paradise, when what one wanted and what one had were exactly the same thing...."

In beautiful, eerie language, Anomia follows the stories of seven characters haunted by the past ("the infrastructure of the present") and their elusive desires, all searching for something (or each other), dwelling mostly on the margins of a small, strange town named Euphoria. I loved this book - creepy and clever and compassionate, heartbreaking and hopeful. A mystery, superimposed with forlorn and dreamy love stories, and a ghostly reflection on desire and loss, this novel is also the first I've ever read where the characters exist outside of sex and gender.

[Ash [Ginggercakes] · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 STARS
TW: suicidal ideation, miscarriage, discussions of death, grief, human remains

The clock has a face, but no expression; the toaster has an arm, but its panels are mirrors; shoes have soles but their tongues are tied. None of them offer reprieve from the feeling that one is only ever talking to oneself.

Interesting story and characters, plot meanders but sticks to a central theme. The characters played a huge roll in this and despite there not being a lot of character growth, there is a lot of character dissection throughout the book. It was very raw and definitely a striking story to think on. It was very interesting book to read and I’m glad I got a change to read a book by a local author.

[Chyx Xyng · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anomia is a mystery novel, but it’s also much more than that. The story is set in Euphoria, “a town that the winds of progress always take longer to reach…” Another fascinating aspect of the novel is that it is set in a world with no references to gender. Hats off to Jade for masterfully telling stories of love and loss between Blue, Culver, Fir, et al. It’s a great reminder that love (and its counterpart, pain) feel the same regardless of whether the characters are straight or queer. The most devastating line from the book: “I’ve never loved anyone more than you. No one, not even myself. Especially not myself.”

[Tesla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d say this is closer to 3.5! A really unique read as it took some time to adjust to the genderless universe but I enjoyed it as a different way to relate to and visualize characters. That being said, I found some of the mystery a little shallow and perhaps that’s because at times I found the characters a bit distant or one-note and I could have used some additional backstory or detail. But a really impressive debut novel and I’d be curious to read future novels by this author!