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Echolalia
What might drive a mother to do the unthinkable?
Before: Emma Cormac married into a perfect life but now she's barely coping. Inside a brand new, palatial home, her three young children need more than she can give. Clem, a wilful four year old, is intent on mimicking her grandmother; the formidable matriarch Pat Cormac. Arthur is almost three and still won't speak. At least baby Robbie is perfect. He's the future of the family. So why can't Emma hold him without wanting to scream?
Beyond their gleaming windows, a lake vista is evaporating. The birds have mostly disappeared, too. All over Shorehaven, the Cormac family buys up land to develop into cheap housing for people they openly scorn.
After: The summers have grown even fiercer and the Cormac name doesn't mean what it used to. Arthur has taken it abroad, far from a family unable to understand him. Clem is a young artist who turns obsessively to the same dark subject. Pat doesn't even know what legacy means now. Not since the ground started sinking beneath her.
Meanwhile, a nameless woman has been released from state care. She sticks to her twelve-step program, recites her affirmations, works one day at a time on a humble life devoid of ambition or redemption. How can she have an after when baby Robbie doesn't?
Before: Emma Cormac married into a perfect life but now she's barely coping. Inside a brand new, palatial home, her three young children need more than she can give. Clem, a wilful four year old, is intent on mimicking her grandmother; the formidable matriarch Pat Cormac. Arthur is almost three and still won't speak. At least baby Robbie is perfect. He's the future of the family. So why can't Emma hold him without wanting to scream?
Beyond their gleaming windows, a lake vista is evaporating. The birds have mostly disappeared, too. All over Shorehaven, the Cormac family buys up land to develop into cheap housing for people they openly scorn.
After: The summers have grown even fiercer and the Cormac name doesn't mean what it used to. Arthur has taken it abroad, far from a family unable to understand him. Clem is a young artist who turns obsessively to the same dark subject. Pat doesn't even know what legacy means now. Not since the ground started sinking beneath her.
Meanwhile, a nameless woman has been released from state care. She sticks to her twelve-step program, recites her affirmations, works one day at a time on a humble life devoid of ambition or redemption. How can she have an after when baby Robbie doesn't?
320 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2021
17 people are currently reading
645 people want to read
About the author
Briohny Doyle
8 books47 followersBriohny Doyle is a Melbourne-based writer and academic. Her work has appeared in publications like The Lifted Brow, The Age, Overland, Going Down Swinging and Meanjin, among others, and she has performed her work at the Sydney Festival and at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
June 22, 2021
I’m not sure how best to describe Echolalia by Briohny Doyle, perhaps as a literary domestic suspense. Set in an outer suburban Australia the timeline of Echolalia shifts ‘Before’ and ‘After’ the night Emma Cormac left her infant son alone by a dried up lake.
In the before, Emma is married to Robert Cormac, the princely only son of local wealthy construction developers, and installed in the expansive home he built for them. It’s the stuff of fairytales for Emma, who is from a far less affluent background, which only begins to sour with the birth of their second child, a son who is quickly diagnosed with a hereditary disorder, and viewed as a blot on the Cormac family name. Seeking redemption for what is perceived as her failure to provide a suitable heir, barely eighteen months later Emma presents her husband wth a healthy son, Robbie.
After, Emma’s children, Clem and Arthur, are young adults who have not seen their mother since the night baby Robbie died. While Arthur has made a life for himself far from the influence of the Cormac’s, Clem remains haunted by all she does not know.
Echolalia is a bleak tale, commenting on climate change, capitalism, class, privilege, legacy, patriarchy, trauma and motherhood. I found the ‘Before’ to be more compelling than the ‘After’, which feels somewhat unresolved.
Emma’s emotions are viscerally portrayed as she becomes increasingly fragile, both emotionally and physically. Her sense of self already vague, it disintegrates under the expectations of the family she has into married to. Drifting unheeded towards the inevitable tragedy, it’s clear Emma is suffering from post natal depression which tips into psychosis.
In their relationship with Emma, while her husband Robert is perhaps at best myopic, his mother Pat is wilfully insensitive, and Robert’s cousin, Shane, is pointedly cruel. These attitudes are also echoed in their business dealings as the wield their wealth and power in ways which are both careless and deliberate. In the aftermath the Cormac’s accept no responsibility, Emma and the loss of Robbie, a convenient scapegoat for everything that then befalls them.
With its crisp and evocative prose, Echolalia is a raw, poignant and unsettling novel that left me uncomfortable, but thoughtful.
In the before, Emma is married to Robert Cormac, the princely only son of local wealthy construction developers, and installed in the expansive home he built for them. It’s the stuff of fairytales for Emma, who is from a far less affluent background, which only begins to sour with the birth of their second child, a son who is quickly diagnosed with a hereditary disorder, and viewed as a blot on the Cormac family name. Seeking redemption for what is perceived as her failure to provide a suitable heir, barely eighteen months later Emma presents her husband wth a healthy son, Robbie.
After, Emma’s children, Clem and Arthur, are young adults who have not seen their mother since the night baby Robbie died. While Arthur has made a life for himself far from the influence of the Cormac’s, Clem remains haunted by all she does not know.
Echolalia is a bleak tale, commenting on climate change, capitalism, class, privilege, legacy, patriarchy, trauma and motherhood. I found the ‘Before’ to be more compelling than the ‘After’, which feels somewhat unresolved.
Emma’s emotions are viscerally portrayed as she becomes increasingly fragile, both emotionally and physically. Her sense of self already vague, it disintegrates under the expectations of the family she has into married to. Drifting unheeded towards the inevitable tragedy, it’s clear Emma is suffering from post natal depression which tips into psychosis.
In their relationship with Emma, while her husband Robert is perhaps at best myopic, his mother Pat is wilfully insensitive, and Robert’s cousin, Shane, is pointedly cruel. These attitudes are also echoed in their business dealings as the wield their wealth and power in ways which are both careless and deliberate. In the aftermath the Cormac’s accept no responsibility, Emma and the loss of Robbie, a convenient scapegoat for everything that then befalls them.
With its crisp and evocative prose, Echolalia is a raw, poignant and unsettling novel that left me uncomfortable, but thoughtful.
August 7, 2021
The most gripping read so far this year.
Set mainly in an Australian rural small town in recent years. It revolves around toxic family life, you watch Emma unravel thanks to several members of it, young and old. The story unfolds in two intermingled parts, before and after. I had to go back and reread the After bits to fully grasp the structure, don’t worry if you can’t place where it’s going at first go. The author creates a very powerful novel, full of dry heat and unrelenting internal pressures. The novel’s world is horribly real at times. In spite of all that, I’m so glad I read it.
Set mainly in an Australian rural small town in recent years. It revolves around toxic family life, you watch Emma unravel thanks to several members of it, young and old. The story unfolds in two intermingled parts, before and after. I had to go back and reread the After bits to fully grasp the structure, don’t worry if you can’t place where it’s going at first go. The author creates a very powerful novel, full of dry heat and unrelenting internal pressures. The novel’s world is horribly real at times. In spite of all that, I’m so glad I read it.
May 21, 2021
My review is published in the June edition of goodREADING magazine.
A wonderful novel, beautifully written with a great narrative structure.
A wonderful novel, beautifully written with a great narrative structure.
June 21, 2021
This novel covered some huge themes - post natal depression, infanticide, emotional abuse, not to mention climate change - possibly to its detriment. I wasn’t sure what the book wanted to be and whilst this mixing of topics was ambitious and may have worked it somehow didn’t. In the end, nothing was covered adequately. The ‘after’ sections were confusing and I found some of them impossible to reconcile with the ‘before’ sections. It was a long and laborious read. Bleak.
January 23, 2022
‘It would be easy not to notice him.’
There are two parts to this story, separated by a tragedy. Before the tragedy, Emma Cormac is struggling. She has married into a wealthy, privileged family, and lives in a palatial new home in outer suburban Australia. But she is undermined by her formidable mother-in-law, Pat Cormac, and is barely struggling with her three young children. Clem is four, a wilful child who mimics her grandmother. Arthur, who is almost three, has a genetic disorder. Emma is protective of him, but it is her perfect baby, Robbie, that the Cormac family sees as being their future. Robbie is a demanding baby, wanting more than Emma can give.
And just outside the window, the lake is evaporating, the birds are disappearing, and the Cormac family buys up land to develop into cheap housing. One night, Emma leaves baby Robbie alone by the lake. By the time he is found, it is too late to save him.
Afterwards, some years later, the summers are even hotter. The Cormac name no longer has the power it once held, and Arthur has made a name for himself overseas. Clem is now an artist, haunted by the past and obsessively revisiting it. And a nameless woman is released from state care. Hers is a life governed by the routine of a twelve-step program, lived one day at a time. How can she have any future when Robbie did not?
What a bleak story this is. The once mighty Cormac family fragmented, as though the death of baby Robbie robbed them of all ambition and the need to take any responsibility. Climate change continues and the natural environment suffers. And the nameless woman must live with all the consequences, not just the results of her own actions. How, where, and when will it end?
This novel haunts me. This is partly because of what happened to baby Robbie but also because there is no neat resolution. We are left, as is the world, in an uneasy suspense. Existence continues, but life is constrained.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
There are two parts to this story, separated by a tragedy. Before the tragedy, Emma Cormac is struggling. She has married into a wealthy, privileged family, and lives in a palatial new home in outer suburban Australia. But she is undermined by her formidable mother-in-law, Pat Cormac, and is barely struggling with her three young children. Clem is four, a wilful child who mimics her grandmother. Arthur, who is almost three, has a genetic disorder. Emma is protective of him, but it is her perfect baby, Robbie, that the Cormac family sees as being their future. Robbie is a demanding baby, wanting more than Emma can give.
And just outside the window, the lake is evaporating, the birds are disappearing, and the Cormac family buys up land to develop into cheap housing. One night, Emma leaves baby Robbie alone by the lake. By the time he is found, it is too late to save him.
Afterwards, some years later, the summers are even hotter. The Cormac name no longer has the power it once held, and Arthur has made a name for himself overseas. Clem is now an artist, haunted by the past and obsessively revisiting it. And a nameless woman is released from state care. Hers is a life governed by the routine of a twelve-step program, lived one day at a time. How can she have any future when Robbie did not?
What a bleak story this is. The once mighty Cormac family fragmented, as though the death of baby Robbie robbed them of all ambition and the need to take any responsibility. Climate change continues and the natural environment suffers. And the nameless woman must live with all the consequences, not just the results of her own actions. How, where, and when will it end?
This novel haunts me. This is partly because of what happened to baby Robbie but also because there is no neat resolution. We are left, as is the world, in an uneasy suspense. Existence continues, but life is constrained.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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June 20, 2021Echolalia is a horror story, although it is not billed as one (that’s part of the horror). Emma is a young mother of three. She is suffering from postpartum psychosis, as well as the possibility that she may be a monster. A mother who neglects her children, and who has killed her youngest, Robbie. This is all monstrous, but not as monstrous as what has led to it: Emma has neglected herself.
Blame the marriage. Emma is hitched to mummy’s boy Robert Cormac. Robert, bless his heart, does not get it. Solemn, stoic, hapless, he is cishet masculinity’s failings writ large: nice enough during their university meet-cute, sure; but three kids in and our once-was Ryan Gosling is Ryan Guzzling enough booze to set himself alight if he gets too near the barbecue. He compares their marriage to football (“there were rounds and seasons, and you played the best you could”) and wears his mum’s admonition to hang in for “the long game” of marriage like a Brownlow. He is disturbed by baby Arthur’s diagnosis as neurodiverse. Its connection to Emma’s side of the family worries him. So do vulnerability and weakness generally.
Is hubby, then, the true monster? Is it their children – vomiting, mewling, clinging? (Children, in Echolalia, are a real nightmare.)
Doyle’s second novel is part of an increasingly visible genre. It’s the latest iteration of the Gothic form, commonly known as Girl, What Are You Doing With All of These People? Its antecedents – Cinderella, Brandon Taylor’s Real Life – feature characters slowly smothered by an unreflective entourage of family and friends; people who can barely be bothered to know them, let alone relate to them.
Read on: https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
Blame the marriage. Emma is hitched to mummy’s boy Robert Cormac. Robert, bless his heart, does not get it. Solemn, stoic, hapless, he is cishet masculinity’s failings writ large: nice enough during their university meet-cute, sure; but three kids in and our once-was Ryan Gosling is Ryan Guzzling enough booze to set himself alight if he gets too near the barbecue. He compares their marriage to football (“there were rounds and seasons, and you played the best you could”) and wears his mum’s admonition to hang in for “the long game” of marriage like a Brownlow. He is disturbed by baby Arthur’s diagnosis as neurodiverse. Its connection to Emma’s side of the family worries him. So do vulnerability and weakness generally.
Is hubby, then, the true monster? Is it their children – vomiting, mewling, clinging? (Children, in Echolalia, are a real nightmare.)
Doyle’s second novel is part of an increasingly visible genre. It’s the latest iteration of the Gothic form, commonly known as Girl, What Are You Doing With All of These People? Its antecedents – Cinderella, Brandon Taylor’s Real Life – feature characters slowly smothered by an unreflective entourage of family and friends; people who can barely be bothered to know them, let alone relate to them.
Read on: https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
July 22, 2021
If I remember correctly from her previous work, Briohny Doyle has a PhD in dystopian fiction. This is evident in the dystopia explored in Echolalia but it isn’t futuristic science fiction, it’s the horror of reality in Australian suburbia. There’s an eerie sense of disorientation in this book, as with Doyle’s previous novel, making it difficult to even tell where and when the story is set until about halfway through when we get enough cultural references to ground it in about 2013, in a fictional town in the goldfields region 2 hours northwest of Melbourne. Even then, I don’t think Melbourne is named, suggesting that the story is meant to be somewhat ungrounded, and Emma could be anyone.
It’s a domestic thriller and scarily realistic. Even if we don’t have a Robert or Shane in our own families, every young woman in the western world would know men like them as a sleazy guy from a bar or a friend’s macho boyfriend. The kids are skilfully written and individual characters in their own right, where in other books they’d just be a plot device. I would have liked to better understand Emma, but perhaps what we saw was that she didn’t understand herself. Similarly I would have liked more clarity around the fire but it’s not Doyle’s style to overburden a point.
This is the fourth Australian book I’ve read in the last year with a focus on postnatal mental health (the others being Into the Fire by Sonia Orchid, The Last Anniversary by Lianne Moriarty and Sad Mum Lady by Ashe Davenport) and perhaps I’ve just shifted into the demographic but I’m glad to see the stories told in a nuanced non-sensationalist way, confronting though they may be.
It’s a domestic thriller and scarily realistic. Even if we don’t have a Robert or Shane in our own families, every young woman in the western world would know men like them as a sleazy guy from a bar or a friend’s macho boyfriend. The kids are skilfully written and individual characters in their own right, where in other books they’d just be a plot device. I would have liked to better understand Emma, but perhaps what we saw was that she didn’t understand herself. Similarly I would have liked more clarity around the fire but it’s not Doyle’s style to overburden a point.
This is the fourth Australian book I’ve read in the last year with a focus on postnatal mental health (the others being Into the Fire by Sonia Orchid, The Last Anniversary by Lianne Moriarty and Sad Mum Lady by Ashe Davenport) and perhaps I’ve just shifted into the demographic but I’m glad to see the stories told in a nuanced non-sensationalist way, confronting though they may be.
August 6, 2022
This was a hard book to get into at first, as we spend time in the head of Emma, mother of three, who is having a very rough time with her mental health and her life circumstances. After a few chapters, we switch narrators and from then on I did not want to put the book down. Essentially, we know from the beginning of the book that baby Robbie is left outside and he dies. The circumstances that lead up to this event are revealed slowly throughout almost the whole book. Briohny Doyle’s writing is impeccable.
September 8, 2021
This was extremely good. I really enjoyed the style and structure and the complexity and fragility of the characters. Very sad and moving with an ending acknowledging the importance of understanding, empathy, love and forgiveness. Does anything else really matter? We are all so broken in many ways but we can accept this, move forwards and care for one another. That’s living!
June 14, 2022
This is a tautly drawn suburban thriller that also manages to be a literary triumph, and raise questions well beyond the insular circles the story covers. Doyle's setting is a slice of outer suburbia - a district undergoing rapid development - and the McMansion homes of its developers. In this sprawling, showcase home, Emma's mental state decays as certainly as the lake outside dries up. Doyle's characters flail to be who they are supposed to be, bounced between expectations, rarely happy. At the centre is newborn Robbie, the repository of everyone's expectations - the child who will make all the sacrifice worthwhile. The more the extended family position around him, the harder Emma finds it to love him, in sharp contrast with the ever more difficult Arthur. The narrative is stifling, building slowly towards whose details are withheld from us, while in alternating chapters we see the fallout and the slow rebuild.
The execution is almost flawless. The book alternates perspectives while never losing Emma from the centre of everyone's vision. The torture of domestic routine and a life at odds with family is sketched with precision and just the right amount of tedium. Emma's experiences combine the real and the surreal in ways that throw us off balance, evoking dissociative experiences.
Doyle is ferociously feminist: the writing is least subtle in examining how Emma's assigned role as mother and wife untethers her from anything solid, and prevents those around her from seeing her. But subtle isn't really the point here. The before sections also work much more smoothly than the After, where by necessity much is obscured and then the narrative has to catch up on story. Despite this, it is one of the more memorable reads for me this year.
The execution is almost flawless. The book alternates perspectives while never losing Emma from the centre of everyone's vision. The torture of domestic routine and a life at odds with family is sketched with precision and just the right amount of tedium. Emma's experiences combine the real and the surreal in ways that throw us off balance, evoking dissociative experiences.
Doyle is ferociously feminist: the writing is least subtle in examining how Emma's assigned role as mother and wife untethers her from anything solid, and prevents those around her from seeing her. But subtle isn't really the point here. The before sections also work much more smoothly than the After, where by necessity much is obscured and then the narrative has to catch up on story. Despite this, it is one of the more memorable reads for me this year.
November 25, 2021
Oh no, another book that makes me doubt my own ability to write. Echolalia is a superbly written book, I didn’t so much read it as feel it and those were some pretty big feels to deal with.
It is the kind of book English majors could dissect and find symbols and meaning in every word, but people like me can just get swept up in a heartbreaking story of a family and the long tail of trauma.
You can feel the heat in this book, both in the physicality of the story and the rising temperature of the main character Emma. It’s complex and beautiful and I am probably not selling it well because I’m making it sound like a difficult read and it’s not. You should read it yourself because it will touch your heart and you will meet characters who will stay with you long after you’ve put the book down.
It is the kind of book English majors could dissect and find symbols and meaning in every word, but people like me can just get swept up in a heartbreaking story of a family and the long tail of trauma.
You can feel the heat in this book, both in the physicality of the story and the rising temperature of the main character Emma. It’s complex and beautiful and I am probably not selling it well because I’m making it sound like a difficult read and it’s not. You should read it yourself because it will touch your heart and you will meet characters who will stay with you long after you’ve put the book down.
October 20, 2021
Echolalia sounds like such a beautiful word but it is truely heartbreaking in this context. This story has left me reeling.
The first third, about Emma, seemed like a small but desperately sad (and not unfamiliar in novels) domestic drama. In the middle third Doyle turns a sweeping lens on the characters around Emma and using a before and after narration technique we begin to see a darker story emerge. The final third again changes focus, looking at bigger world issues and how they impact upon the characters (and us all). In the closing stages we are drawn back to the heart of the matter. What can never be undone and the question of how to go on is all that remains.
The clever use of “the woman “, “the girl” and “the man” made me feel that this was a story, that in some respects, includes us all in its landscape.
The first third, about Emma, seemed like a small but desperately sad (and not unfamiliar in novels) domestic drama. In the middle third Doyle turns a sweeping lens on the characters around Emma and using a before and after narration technique we begin to see a darker story emerge. The final third again changes focus, looking at bigger world issues and how they impact upon the characters (and us all). In the closing stages we are drawn back to the heart of the matter. What can never be undone and the question of how to go on is all that remains.
The clever use of “the woman “, “the girl” and “the man” made me feel that this was a story, that in some respects, includes us all in its landscape.
June 16, 2022
I wanted to love this book, I wanted to marinate in its critique of domestic confinement and old-money prejudice against a backdrop of gaudy and pompous small-town superiority.....oh the potential... Instead, I found myself disengaged and frustrated by the overly detailed and irrelevant stream-of-consciousness prose and attention to most minor of details.
More focus on key events, terse interactions, and relatable characterisation would have made me care a little more.
Smacks of a certain literary pomp and indulgence also
I hope it doesn't win the Miles Franklin.
More focus on key events, terse interactions, and relatable characterisation would have made me care a little more.
Smacks of a certain literary pomp and indulgence also
I hope it doesn't win the Miles Franklin.
October 19, 2021
I liked this early - Doyle writes well IMHO - but she loses sight of the plot and so do we. It's as if she thought that a simple story well-told was insufficient.
June 21, 2021
Thank you Penguin for sending us a copy to read and review.
The human body reacts to all kinds of internal and external stimuli causing repressive conditions that need the right care and therapy.
If left unchecked these conditions can manifest into sad and scary situations. Motherhood is a capsule containing joy, love and heartbreak.
This explosive narrative is spilt between the Before and the After.
The horrors of post natal psychosis interwoven between the timelines.
Emma has married well, produced the offspring to continue the dynasty and lives a life that seems perfect but behind the facade she is broken and life is spiralling out of control.
The inundation of three children, one with special needs, an oblivious husband that is not hands on and experiencing a fractured relationship with her in-laws are all overwhelming.
Afterwards a family is torn emotionally and lose important familial connections.
The family name loses it status in the business world and the oblivious husband lives aimlessly.
A mother although has paid her dues and adheres to recovery programs can’t live joyfully knowing her baby won’t.
Metaphorically a hot crispy dry environment and landscape and the inner sufferings of a mother who is suffering are seamlessly paired as they evoke that feeling of despair and hopelessness.
This read had me engaged from page one and although I had a rough idea of the premise it took me on a journey where I felt the pain Emma was feeling.
The reader witnesses the melting and sees it repercussions.
Awesome read.
The human body reacts to all kinds of internal and external stimuli causing repressive conditions that need the right care and therapy.
If left unchecked these conditions can manifest into sad and scary situations. Motherhood is a capsule containing joy, love and heartbreak.
This explosive narrative is spilt between the Before and the After.
The horrors of post natal psychosis interwoven between the timelines.
Emma has married well, produced the offspring to continue the dynasty and lives a life that seems perfect but behind the facade she is broken and life is spiralling out of control.
The inundation of three children, one with special needs, an oblivious husband that is not hands on and experiencing a fractured relationship with her in-laws are all overwhelming.
Afterwards a family is torn emotionally and lose important familial connections.
The family name loses it status in the business world and the oblivious husband lives aimlessly.
A mother although has paid her dues and adheres to recovery programs can’t live joyfully knowing her baby won’t.
Metaphorically a hot crispy dry environment and landscape and the inner sufferings of a mother who is suffering are seamlessly paired as they evoke that feeling of despair and hopelessness.
This read had me engaged from page one and although I had a rough idea of the premise it took me on a journey where I felt the pain Emma was feeling.
The reader witnesses the melting and sees it repercussions.
Awesome read.
January 5, 2022
Challenging subject matter told with momentum and well-developed characters. For lots of this story I got a feeling of floating, being untethered, which is perhaps consistent with the main character, Emma's, experience. There's loads of depressing context driving Emma's descent into psychosis, I would have liked more of her inner monologue. I enjoyed Doyle's convincing use of the ocker voice!
March 15, 2024
Loooooved
December 28, 2022
Echolalia was shortlisted for the Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Fiction in 2022 (it went to someone else). I was attracted to the near-future dystopia genre it promised, but I got a whole lot more than that.
While it would be easy to say the book is a dystopian thriller and wrap up all its events within the idea that it 'not real', I would say it is fundamentally about motherhood and trauma, and the dystopian aspects merely add an eerie element.
The book switches been Before (2010ish) and After (2025). In Before, Australia is heating up, endless housing developments are taking over outer suburbia and regional areas, and in the middle of this, a mother with three kids under 5 is trying to keep her sh*t together. In After, the environment and various lives have fallen apart.
We are prepared early on for some sort of tragedy, which lends a sense of urgency to the book. However, this book's true strength lies in its unwaveringly desperate view of the way women are treated in society. As mothers: 'Motherhood was a constant fluctuation of rights earned and surrendered. The right to rest, the right to let go of some things and the necessity of picking up others'. Receiving medical treatment: 'Medicine did not have enough words for pain...In feeling it wrong, you had already failed, revealed your weakness.' (I found this section of the book unflinchingly strong - women being told about their bodies by men is still a massive social issue that dominates how we are treated medically and emotionally). Feeling the absolute exhaustion of being the full-time at-home parent of little kids: 'It took almost nothing, she realised, to restore him. That was part of what made it so hard'. Emma, the main character, needs to be heard and loved, and at every turn she's told there is nothing wrong. It's 'normal'.
This book is extraordinary for its recognition and portrayal of being female in modern Australian society, and for how the climate change emergency and neuro-diversity is worked into that. This is, in basic terms, a book about recurring, generational trauma in women. I highly recommend it.
Please shop at your local independent bookstore.
Follow me at www.instagram.com/avrbookstuff.
While it would be easy to say the book is a dystopian thriller and wrap up all its events within the idea that it 'not real', I would say it is fundamentally about motherhood and trauma, and the dystopian aspects merely add an eerie element.
The book switches been Before (2010ish) and After (2025). In Before, Australia is heating up, endless housing developments are taking over outer suburbia and regional areas, and in the middle of this, a mother with three kids under 5 is trying to keep her sh*t together. In After, the environment and various lives have fallen apart.
We are prepared early on for some sort of tragedy, which lends a sense of urgency to the book. However, this book's true strength lies in its unwaveringly desperate view of the way women are treated in society. As mothers: 'Motherhood was a constant fluctuation of rights earned and surrendered. The right to rest, the right to let go of some things and the necessity of picking up others'. Receiving medical treatment: 'Medicine did not have enough words for pain...In feeling it wrong, you had already failed, revealed your weakness.' (I found this section of the book unflinchingly strong - women being told about their bodies by men is still a massive social issue that dominates how we are treated medically and emotionally). Feeling the absolute exhaustion of being the full-time at-home parent of little kids: 'It took almost nothing, she realised, to restore him. That was part of what made it so hard'. Emma, the main character, needs to be heard and loved, and at every turn she's told there is nothing wrong. It's 'normal'.
This book is extraordinary for its recognition and portrayal of being female in modern Australian society, and for how the climate change emergency and neuro-diversity is worked into that. This is, in basic terms, a book about recurring, generational trauma in women. I highly recommend it.
Please shop at your local independent bookstore.
Follow me at www.instagram.com/avrbookstuff.
September 6, 2021
This was difficult to read and hard to rate. I feel it is more of a 2.5 star read, but I don't get half star options on Goodreads, so I've gone for the lower rating for a variety of reasons. As someone who has experienced PND, I didn't know that was what this story was about when I started reading and if I had I probably would have avoided it. Echolalia wasn't fun to read and sat quite uncomfortably, as was intended. This is not to say the author did a bad job, she didn't, it was actually very well written, I just didn't enjoy the subject matter.
Another issue I had with this novel is that the plot really seemed to drag and a lot of the time I was wondering why each of the chapters couldn't be substantially shortened. I didn't relate to any of the characters, as they all seemed unlikeable. The time and POV jumps didn't really help matters.
Overall, this novel did a decent job of capturing the emotion and tragedy of someone suffering PND and associated psychosis.
Another issue I had with this novel is that the plot really seemed to drag and a lot of the time I was wondering why each of the chapters couldn't be substantially shortened. I didn't relate to any of the characters, as they all seemed unlikeable. The time and POV jumps didn't really help matters.
Overall, this novel did a decent job of capturing the emotion and tragedy of someone suffering PND and associated psychosis.
September 22, 2021
ECHOLALIA by @briohny.doyle is unlike anything else I’ve read. It’s the type of story that makes you crunch your shoulders up around your ears without realising you're doing it.
Exploring issues of mental health, toxic family dynamics, misogyny, climate change and classism, the cast of characters are like a chocolate box assortment of deplorable personalities. They are drawn so vividly that you feel your skin crawl with the reality of them.
The story is divided into ‘Before’ and ‘After’ an unthinkable act, with a dream-like ‘other’ character haunting the edges of a more distant future. The writing is sharp and original, and the visceral depiction of the protagonist’s experience of early motherhood with three-under-four
pierces the heart. The current climate emergency is presented with as much significance as if it was an additional character – a heavy omnipresent threat looming over all else.
This story is tough, but worth it.
Exploring issues of mental health, toxic family dynamics, misogyny, climate change and classism, the cast of characters are like a chocolate box assortment of deplorable personalities. They are drawn so vividly that you feel your skin crawl with the reality of them.
The story is divided into ‘Before’ and ‘After’ an unthinkable act, with a dream-like ‘other’ character haunting the edges of a more distant future. The writing is sharp and original, and the visceral depiction of the protagonist’s experience of early motherhood with three-under-four
pierces the heart. The current climate emergency is presented with as much significance as if it was an additional character – a heavy omnipresent threat looming over all else.
This story is tough, but worth it.
August 18, 2021
Based on the title, I suspected this book was going to provide another voice of a person living on the spectrum. I was wrong, and I really didn’t know what to feel after I finished reading (listening) to the story. To be honest, I don’t know why this book is so popular…
I didn’t really like any of the characters, couldn’t empathise with anyone, everyone was sort of nasty, or depressed. Maybe because of that, I didn’t feel comfortable with any of the character’s narration. All the voices fell flat for me.
I wish I got to hear more of the children’s perspectives. That would have provided more depth and insights into the family’s strange dynamic, maybe? Not sure what else I expected from this book, but it just left me sort of in the ‘mehhh’ mood.
I didn’t really like any of the characters, couldn’t empathise with anyone, everyone was sort of nasty, or depressed. Maybe because of that, I didn’t feel comfortable with any of the character’s narration. All the voices fell flat for me.
I wish I got to hear more of the children’s perspectives. That would have provided more depth and insights into the family’s strange dynamic, maybe? Not sure what else I expected from this book, but it just left me sort of in the ‘mehhh’ mood.
August 6, 2021
An urban horror story. Where no-one is 'bad' or 'good', each viewing life differently, expectations, reputations, careers....how it can all mix together and boil in a seething heated mess. I found it really interesting, it was confusing, frustrating - but feelings that went along with the characters experience of life. The weather as the other character certainly added to the uncomfortable nature of the narrative, threw in a touch of the approaching apocalypse. Where the ordinary can be so...horrific. Some beautiful writing amongst this...'marmalade sky'.....a infant survivor of post natal psychosis it wasn't triggering, it helped me 'understand' the horror.
February 18, 2024
Wow…. Wow… (Book Club Bastard Santa, from Lish)
Aussie, a cross of Jane Harper and Paula Hawkins 😟
So hectic. Jumping back and forth timeline style, little bits revealed as you progress. Finished with quite a lot unsaid/unresolved. But you can fill in the gaps pretty readily.
Wow
Aussie, a cross of Jane Harper and Paula Hawkins 😟
So hectic. Jumping back and forth timeline style, little bits revealed as you progress. Finished with quite a lot unsaid/unresolved. But you can fill in the gaps pretty readily.
Wow
July 2, 2025
A gripping Australian domestic suspense. Psychologically intense at times, while exploring the weight of generational and societal expectations.
December 27, 2021
This book is so fascinating I hoovered it up in just over a day!
It is written in both the 'Before' and the 'After' and it took me a little while to come to grips with the chapters flipping between, but once that settled I was drawn in to the life of Emma.
Emma Cormac is perfect - well at least the world she inhabits thinks she is. She has married into a wealthy and prominent family whose business interests are in development and their business approach results in them getting what they want no matter how they get it.
The family is dominated by the matriarch, Pat, a very strong and opinionated woman who looks down her nose at Emma for any sign that she is not representing the family brand as she should. But Emma is struggling. After her first child Clem is born, all is well - the house perfect, the décor immaculate, the kid fine, the social circle maintained.
Arthur, her second child, brings challenges as he is non-verbal. Emma feels a huge connection to Arthur but also the guilt of being responsible for his condition. Then along comes baby number three, Robbie - a big, demanding boy who looks perfect but Emma is completely distanced from him.
How can she continue to be the perfect wife, fitting in to the demands of this prominent family, raising the kids while feeling like she is drifting away unable to cope.
There are so many issues raised in this book: post-natal depression, anxiety, grief, power, powerlessness, greed, status, violence. All of these weave in and out of the narrative and impact each character.
A riveting read.
It is written in both the 'Before' and the 'After' and it took me a little while to come to grips with the chapters flipping between, but once that settled I was drawn in to the life of Emma.
Emma Cormac is perfect - well at least the world she inhabits thinks she is. She has married into a wealthy and prominent family whose business interests are in development and their business approach results in them getting what they want no matter how they get it.
The family is dominated by the matriarch, Pat, a very strong and opinionated woman who looks down her nose at Emma for any sign that she is not representing the family brand as she should. But Emma is struggling. After her first child Clem is born, all is well - the house perfect, the décor immaculate, the kid fine, the social circle maintained.
Arthur, her second child, brings challenges as he is non-verbal. Emma feels a huge connection to Arthur but also the guilt of being responsible for his condition. Then along comes baby number three, Robbie - a big, demanding boy who looks perfect but Emma is completely distanced from him.
How can she continue to be the perfect wife, fitting in to the demands of this prominent family, raising the kids while feeling like she is drifting away unable to cope.
There are so many issues raised in this book: post-natal depression, anxiety, grief, power, powerlessness, greed, status, violence. All of these weave in and out of the narrative and impact each character.
A riveting read.
June 21, 2022
This is a dark novel. I didn't expect that - actually, I'm not sure what I expected. It is a blend of drama and tragedy, but it does have a dark and gothic feel. The setting of the normal suburban life also makes it more atmospheric. We have what seems like a perfect family, but there are many undercurrents that seem to choke the life out of the main character, Emma.
I didn't enjoy the past and present fracturing of the book. In my opinion, it would have been better told in a linear timeline, but I'm not the publisher. What I did enjoy is the story - it does grip you and challenge you. There are some horrible things that happen in this book, and it's not easy to read about a character is such a normal everyday setting slowly disintegrate. It is a challenging read.
The characters do feel real. At times, they seem a little heavy-handed, but I think that is playing into the gothic feel of the story. Emma's mother-in-law, for some reason, made me think of Flowers in the Attack.
Echolalia would not be everybody's idea of a good book, but I am glad that I read it. I does finish on a strange note - there is a conclusion, but it's not complete. It leaves space to wonder on the what if and what what now?
I didn't enjoy the past and present fracturing of the book. In my opinion, it would have been better told in a linear timeline, but I'm not the publisher. What I did enjoy is the story - it does grip you and challenge you. There are some horrible things that happen in this book, and it's not easy to read about a character is such a normal everyday setting slowly disintegrate. It is a challenging read.
The characters do feel real. At times, they seem a little heavy-handed, but I think that is playing into the gothic feel of the story. Emma's mother-in-law, for some reason, made me think of Flowers in the Attack.
Echolalia would not be everybody's idea of a good book, but I am glad that I read it. I does finish on a strange note - there is a conclusion, but it's not complete. It leaves space to wonder on the what if and what what now?
August 5, 2021
The horror of 'Echolalia' is its proximity to any given day. The pervasive torments both of the domestic and of a climate reality close enough to touch if we reach far enough are not uncanny in nature, but disturbingly familiar.
Doyle deftly weaves a number of different themes and timelines to produce a narrative where we know from the outset that the worst has already happened, so we can see the horror as it unfolds. For me, the most frightening image of the book does come at the end, with a physical gesture of terrible abandon beyond either repair or hope. The image is most disturbing not only in its most literal sense but in its intimation of the limits of the world to cope with the growing cracks of climate change, and what might culminate if we continue as we are.
Ultimately, the end message of Echolalia though is one of fragile hope and resilience, and this resonates. You will keep thinking about this book long after you finish it.
Doyle deftly weaves a number of different themes and timelines to produce a narrative where we know from the outset that the worst has already happened, so we can see the horror as it unfolds. For me, the most frightening image of the book does come at the end, with a physical gesture of terrible abandon beyond either repair or hope. The image is most disturbing not only in its most literal sense but in its intimation of the limits of the world to cope with the growing cracks of climate change, and what might culminate if we continue as we are.
Ultimately, the end message of Echolalia though is one of fragile hope and resilience, and this resonates. You will keep thinking about this book long after you finish it.
April 27, 2022
This was a very difficult book to read. The before - then after sections were haphazard and it took concentration to follow the history of the story.
Took too long to get to the end - I thought throughput the book that she had killed all children - but the fact that she had lost one to the marshland was in the last couple of chapters.
It was hard to continue reading this book until the end - not because it was badly written- actually it was well written ; just the momentum was so distracting and to me, it needed a decent edit.
Never ever understood the relationship between the cousins. Never understand Arthur’s journey. Didn’t hear anything about the court case or her immediate future post tossing the baby. Frustrating in so many ways.
A lot of book for not a lot of answers or plot finishing.
Took too long to get to the end - I thought throughput the book that she had killed all children - but the fact that she had lost one to the marshland was in the last couple of chapters.
It was hard to continue reading this book until the end - not because it was badly written- actually it was well written ; just the momentum was so distracting and to me, it needed a decent edit.
Never ever understood the relationship between the cousins. Never understand Arthur’s journey. Didn’t hear anything about the court case or her immediate future post tossing the baby. Frustrating in so many ways.
A lot of book for not a lot of answers or plot finishing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 27, 2022
The present scenario takes place in a cookie-cutter developed neighbourhood surrounding a once sought-after human-made lake that’s now dried up into a boggy field. An intensely well-suited setting for an unenthralled mother diving belly-first into depression. As our Earth shows its scars from fighting against its own death, Emma’s life becomes too much to bear and she does the unthinkable. Not focusing on what could’ve been gore-porn, Briony Doyle’s Echolalia is told in before and after segments, so that the immediate action of infanticide is never the focus. It’s a psychological look on the roles people take-on when playing Normal Family and how dangerous they can be. A moody, page-turning read.
January 10, 2022
evoked the dry harshness of a small country town perfectly as the backdrop to a woman's post natal depression and the extreme consequences of her illness. there were some minor characters who were developed then didn't really progress.. perhaps it could have been longer? though I appreciated how it didn't explicitly say what the crime was, nor flesh out the reconciliation between the woman and her surviving children. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Yael Stone who had a youthful tone to her voice that didn't always gel with the content, but overall was good.
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