Asylum Road

by Olivia Sudjic, Regina López Muñoz (Translator)

Una pareja viaja en coche desde Londres hasta Provenza. Puede parecer una escapada hedonista de dos enamorados, pero en realidad el viaje es una huida hacia delante. Anya tiene serias dudas sobre una relación que se mantiene siempre en el filo, y que siente como desigual y precaria. Su novio, Luke, es un hombre estoico, reservado, con serios problemas de comunicación. Entre ellos se extiende una atmósfera turbia. Una tarde, inesperadamente, él le propone matrimonio y regresan a Londres comprometidos.

Pero los planes de boda ayudan más bien poco a la intranquilidad de Anya, a quien le cuesta encontrar seguridad incluso en los aspectos más mundanos. Cuando era niña tuvo que escapar de aquella Sarajevo sitiada durante la guerra de los Balcanes, y desde entonces nunca se ha sentido protegida: le domina la ansiedad y el miedo al futuro, y vive cualquier cambio o proyecto como una amenaza. Con el evento de su compromiso en el horizonte, empieza a notar la presión de las convenciones sociales que determinan su camino. En vez de esperanzarse con su futuro, siente cómo regresan los traumas del pasado y los miedos que creía enterrados, marcando el destino de un verano cálido y aciago que alcanzará un clímax sorprendente.

Elegante, astuta e inquietante, esta novela de Olivia Sudjic trata sobre las fronteras que marcan nuestras vidas: entre hombres y mujeres, entre la integración y la diferencia, entre lo que nos decimos y lo que nos callamos, entre naciones, familias, orden y caos. ¿Qué sucede cuando los límites se difuminan? ¿En quién nos convertimos entonces, y adónde estamos dispuestos a llegar?

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Novels, Adult, Thriller, Mystery Thriller

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 21, 2021

About the author

Olivia Sudjic was born in 1988 in London. She studied English Literature at Cambridge University where she was awarded the E.G. Harwood English Prize and made a Bateman Scholar. Her debut novel, ‘Sympathy’, will be published in 2017 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (USA/Canada), ONE (UK), Kein & Aber (Germany), Minimum Fax (Italy) and Wydawnictwo Czarna Owca (Poland). She is one of The Observer’s ‘New Faces of Fiction’ for 2017.

Reviews

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author was recently selected for the decennial Granta Best of Young British Novelists list (2023 edition).

I came to this book due to its citation in many previews of the best literary fiction to be published in 2021 - and having read it I can fully understand its inclusion.

The past keeps intruding. We are sick to death of it. I find I am now welcome in my own home. My own country. Again and again this happens. I seem to be the common denominator. This realisation is, at first, the end of a cigarette in the dark, then a train sucking me toward it as passes through my station.

This is Sudjic’s second novel – one she started work on in 2015, drawing on her own inheritance. She has also written a non-fiction long essay which explores among others the work (and their experiences of the reaction to their work) of Rachal Cusk, Elena Ferrante and Jenny Offil and there are overlaps with the work of all three authors.

Anya the (mainly) first person narrator is living in London in her early 30s in the flat of her boyfriend Luke – son of a comfortable Cornish based family. She met Luke in 2012 at a wedding. Anya is studying for an art history PhD (alongside transcription, essay farming and private tutoring), Luke works in the City.

Anya grew up in Sarajevo but when young was evacuated with her older sister to an Aunt in Glasgow – her parents refusing to leave Bosnia, a gap grew up between them which became harder to bridge, particularly after the suicide of her brother (a middle child).

The book is based around a series of road trips.

First Luke and Anya driving down France – Anya believing they may split up, but with Luke proposing to her. Marriage for Anya is both something of wary fascination.

Luke and I owed out first meeting to the wedding of our only mutual friends and since then I’d paid attention to ring fingers, to the self-confidence of these women, like expensive cats that had all been microchipped. My ringless finger marked we as a stray among them.

Then a train journey to Luke’s possessive and Brexit-voting parents in the Cornish port of Mousehole (which also features as the title of the first section). Luke’s Mum “was the kind of mother who refused to knock. A fan of borders but not boundaries.”

Overhearing Luke’s parents bafflement (presumably originating from Luke) at Anya’s refusal to discuss her parents or family – Anya reluctantly agrees to a trip to see her own parents. The arrival at Split airport gives the second section its title and is perhaps a little too obvious a metaphor for the disintegration of Anya and Luke’s relationship that follows an extremely awkward and tense meeting with Anya’s family (after travel via Croatia and Montenegro) – her practical joker father, her mother suffering from Alzheimer’s and convinced they are still under active siege, her resentful sister. It’s a journey which confronts Anya with her past and Luke with the reality of her background and behaviour

It struck me then why it is that the English phrase – to drive home – means to make someone understand.

The last section has Anya – uncertain of whether she has succesfully terminated a pregnancy, apart from Luke, living in a “commune” on the real life London Asylum Road (the title of the third section) – in which dealing with her asylum in the modern sense she also seeks asylum in the more historical sense (which gave the road its name) – care for mental anguish.

She lives there with her late brother’s ex-girlfriend – now an editor of Balkan non-fiction (which allows additional exploration of the book’s meta-themes as well as adding a Cusk-ian link and a Ferrante-esque interaction).

In this section the writing of the novel breaks down deliberately: vivid memories of the past that she is trying to process (a bizarre trip with her cousin in Scotland to hunt deer) appear in the present tense; and a trip back to a college reunion in Cambridge – one she seems to take more on the advice of others and which leads to a sexual encounter with her college boyfriend – is rendered in the third person reflecting some form of distancing and self observation.

Certain images recur: a dread of tunnels; a phobia of soft fruit; a reluctance to learn drive; a maddening ability to lose important items; a fear of desertion and of unexplained absence; invading and out of place animals sharing human spaces (moles, jellyfish, wild boar, mice); thawing and decay; crusts and vomit; the habitual removal of chin hair; sleeplessness and turned bodies; repeating dreams – all of which seem to have their base in past experiences and hidden traumas.

One small point of correction (unless it is a deliberate mistake). At one stage Luke and Anya discuss the latin phrase “Noli me tangere” (a phrase which recurs in the novel as a brushing off and an instruction to stop clinging on to the past) as spoken by Jesus to Mary when she tries to hold on to him after his death. However they get the wrong Mary – it was Magdalene not Mary Mother of Jesus (so that any links to Anya or Luke’s maternal relations are misleading).

But the really recurring imagery of the book is journeys – particularly road trips.

This is a book about the repeating cycles of the past and about a desire to escape them and find some kind of exit route either into some form of happy ever after ending (such as marriage) or via a more foreceful tangential fleeing (which gives the book its striking ending and final road trip).

It is perhaps no surprise to see that the author’s second non-fiction is to be about Desire Lines – and how women navigate the world by unplanned paths.

Finally although a book about the Balkan experiences it acts as a commentary on Brexit also: sometimes perhaps too crudely (a passenger that sits opposite Anya on the train ride to Cornwall is like a collection of stereotypes); sometimes funnily (the quote about Luke’s mother); and sometimes at a meta level.

In particular with this quote in which publishers are exasperated at a refusal to move on from the war in literature (which of course could never happen in England).

It’s only ….. a shame, that’s all. To be still stuck talking about this [the Balkan war]. Even some of the publishing people I know say we should move on, stop making art about it, they say we’re in paralysis, which is true, politically, economically, everything …… But it seems impossible not to talk about [the war] when these people, these revisionists, still exist

Overall a book with surprising depth – not all of which I think I have uncovered – for example what are the origins of her relationship with Christopher (her best friend, advisor, confidant and refuge).

My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for an ARC via NetGalley

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

It struck me then why it is that the English phrase - to drive home - means to make someone understand.

This is a short and edgy exploration of anxiety and the aftermath of trauma articulated via silences and the unsaid. The imagery of roads and tunnels (underground roads) is pervasive and mark the inner, unseen journeys of Anya that parallel the literal ones she takes: to France on holiday, to Cornwall to her boyfriend's parents, to Sarajevo to see her own parents and which recalls memories of the war which she has been trying to repress.

At times, the writing gets a bit uncontrolled: too many 'heartbeats hammer away in mutual dread' throughout and some of the figurative writing could productively be pared back: the 'apostrophe' of balsamic poured into oil, the overwrought image of flies 'languid... like the aftermath of a wild party'.

Overall, though, this is powerful and concentrated, the jittery prose leaving the reader unsettled and on edge, knowing that horrific things that have happened in the past are going to re-emerge and that sometimes taking control is uncannily like losing it. If you can, read this in one sitting to optimise the intensity of the reading experience.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Lotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5. I especially loved the writing style and the way Sudjic wove in reoccurring imagery to describe the effects of trauma and all the ways in which the past can haunt the present.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy it when I'm wrong-footed as to what a novel is really about until I get into the heart of its story. “Asylum Road” is very cleverly structured in how it carefully reveals information in different sections as it carries you through the emotional journey of its protagonist Anya, a 20-something PhD student. The novel's opening line is “Sometimes it felt like the murders kept us together.” But rather than describing a couple who commit murders it goes on to detail their journey from London to France while listening to true crime dramas along the way. Anya is tense thinking her ecologically-minded boyfriend Luke might break up with her on this trip but it turns out he proposes to her with a diamond ring. It feels like this will become a typical modern-day story of the highs and lows of romance yet the ominous tone of that opening line remains and is carried through the story as we gradually learn that Anya was a survivor of the Seige of Sarajevo which occurred when she was a girl. But this isn't a historical account of the Bosnian War. Instead it shows the day to day experience of someone living with a deep trauma that other people are incapable of understanding.

Read my full review of Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic on LonesomeReader

[Adrián · Rating 1 out of 5]

Está claro que este libro no era para mí. No en este momento, sino nunca.

Está escrito con un lenguaje minimalista y delirante, en el que lo que no se dice pesa tanto o más que lo que se dice.

Pero es que tengo la impresión de no haber entendido absolutamente nada. Ni las referencias, ni el contexto, ni las metáforas, ni los personajes, ni el humor (si es que lo hay), nada. Solo he sentido agobio e incomprensión.

Y por supuesto, mi opinión no significa que este libro carezca de calidad literaria. Yo de eso no tengo ni idea. Simplemente, no es para mí.

[Blair]

I'm not doing very well with the 2021 books so far, am I? I wasn't sure I'd want to read this, but the cool, polished prose of the opening sucked me in. I should have stuck with my instincts, though, as absolutely nothing about the plot interested me. While the sentences are crystal-clear, they are also somewhat cold, and I was left entirely unmoved. (Not rating as a low rating wouldn't be fair; this just wasn't for me.)

Review copy from NetGalley.

[Júlia Peró · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leer esta novela es elegir estar en un estado de malestar constante. Qué bien se le da a Olivia transmitir la inseguridad, la incertidumbre y la ansiedad, y no satisfecha con eso, que disfrutes sintiéndolas.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The reaction to Olivia Sudjic's first novel Sympathy led her to write a non-fiction essay on the anxiety epidemic, autofiction and internet feminism, Exposure, drawing on the work and experience of Elena Ferrante, Maggie Nelson, Jenny Offill and Rachel Cusk, amongst others. In an interview at the time Sudjic commented:

When (white, cis-gendered) men write, even about their personal experience, they write about the human condition and, like the erroneous beige of flesh-coloured tights, their perspective is deemed universal. Books written by women, about women, are not. That’s Women’s Fiction.

Asylum Road is her second novel and our first person narrator, Anya, in her early 30s, opens her story, strikingly:

Sometimes it felt like the murders kept us together. I’d suggested taking a break, which turned into the holiday, to remedy our real problems–but I knew we’d need one more for the road. They distracted me from my thoughts, from his silences. Murders and holidays were a quick fix that worked.

The murders are actually a share-loved of true-crime podcasts, but this speaks to the underlying trauma in Anya's ostensible account of a modern relationship, other manifestations including her phobia of tunnels and strongly adverse reaction to any form of soft, squishy, fruit. Anya we learn moved to the UK, to school and to live with her aunt, during the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia, although her parents chose to remain in beseiged Sarajevo where they still live.

The story starts with a road trip to France with her boyfriend, their relationship at that cusp between breaking-up or moving towards the next level. Anya observes sardonically:

Luke and I owed our first meeting to the wedding of our only mutual friends and since then I’d paid attention to ring-fingers, to the self-confidence of these women, like expensive cats that had all been microchipped. My ringless finger marked me as a stray among them. Something pitiable and out of place, which made me want it more, not just for protection but as validation. By that summer, listening to tales of yet another engagement could produce strange reactions in me. I’d ask the newly affianced if she’d been uneasy following her suspicious-acting partner out onto some remote cliff face like that. A rock to the head instead of the hand!

Only I would laugh at this.

But when Luke does indeed produce a hand-destined rock for her, their next journeys are to Cornwall, to visit his Cornwall-nationalist and pro-Brexit parents, and then, reluctantly on her behalf and somewhat forced by overhearing Luke's parents shock that she seldom sees them, back home to Bosnia, via another roadtrip through Croatia and Montenegro, where she finds her mother suffering from trauma-induced dementia, still convinced the city is under bombardment.

They then return to London, and she undertakes two more trips. One is for a University reunion at Cambridge, and below is as she pulls into the station with its rather odd train sign (Anya went to the university for which the city is rather more famed):

After endless fields, she recognised the cycle track now running alongside the train, the science park, sixth form college, rugby pitches and tenpin bowling, the large industrial sheds. It felt like coming up on a strong pill, the connection to these nondescript places–places she hadn’t noticed when she lived there. The train window slowed alongside the station sign. CAMBRIDGE HOME OF ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY

The Cambridge section, once she arrives, switches to the third person, and a flashback to her trip back to her aunt's home in Scotland when she goes down at the end of her first Michelmas Term is written in the present tense, both for reasons not entirely clear to me.

And then finally she moves with a friend from back home, who has following Anya's visit decided to come to the UK, to a bedsit in the eponymous Asylum Road in Peckham, named after the Licensed Victuallers' Benevolent Institution Asylum which stood in the area (actually a almshous for retired pub landlords).

The author's own comments on the novel (a year pre-publication) from an interview (https://www.pifmagazine.com/2019/03/i...)

Q: Where is your second novel set?

A: Lots of places. The title, which is Asylum Road, is a real place, which is in Peckham. The idea of the road extends to the fact that there is a series of places in which it’s set. It starts in France, or rather, driving from London to France, then Cornwall, then Croatia, then Montenegro, then Bosnia and back to London, which is where it ends. And all those places are, in some way, connected to me. It’s convenient that they’re close to me, but it’s more to do with the plot that they’re set there. It’s very much a European novel, as opposed to American, which is what the first novel was.

Q: You wrote about New York in Sympathy, and you wrote a bit about Brussels in Exposure. Having grown up in London, I wonder if your writing is tied to cities.

A: I feel it is quite tied to cities. But that may also be because I feel like I, at the moment, anyway, am writing about—this is an annoying phrase—“modern life.” Even though Asylum Road does, in large part, take place in places that feel like they’re far away from civilization, those places are always in relation to a city. The main character feels like she’s getting further and further away from urban civilization, and closer to a kind of anti-civilization, which the book doesn’t characterize as negative, but which she sees as negative.

This is an impressive work and one rather deeper that it may seem on the surface, particularly the underlying hints of trauma mentioned above. It perhaps came for me at the wrong time and in the wrong format though, as I read this immediately after The Shadow King, which dials up portentousness and echoes to 11, and on a Kindle, which for me is always suited to a lighter read, so I think some of the subtlety and depth passed me by.

3.5 stars although a book I would recommend to others.


Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC

[Marijana☕✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desilo se i to da sam nakon dužeg vremena pročitala knjigu za jedan dan. Roman Olivie Sudjic me obuzeo. Dejzi Džonson je rekla da će otići gde god je Olivia odvede i apsolutno bih se složila. Sudjiceva ponire u najdalje dubine psihe, pripovedajući iz perspektive njene junakinje Anje koja je naizgled izgradila život u Londonu, ali koja ne može da pobegne od Sarajeva svoje prošlosti i pređe preko traume koja je prisutna još od detinjstva, izazvana užasima rata u Bosni. Kada se ovako sroči, rekli biste da je ovo još jedna knjiga o ratovima na našim prostorima i žalu za Jugom, ali zaista je daleko od toga. Shvatila sam da mi je potrebno da se uže definiše žanr ovakvih romana. Svrstala bih ga u isti koš sa romanima Ivi Vajld, ali i gorepomenute Džonsonove koja je napisala „Sestre“ – nazvala bih ih romanima tihe pretnje jer je upravo to osećaj koji je konstantno prisutan u njihovoj prozi. Taj psihološki momenat zaslužan za celokupnu atmosferu koji gradi napetost do savršenog klimaksa. Dosta je tu neizrečenog što daje dodatnu čar i pruža mogućnost čitaocu da se igra psihologa. Pronašla sam ovde čak i Sali Runi jer imamo taj milenijalski momenat, frustrirajuće muško-ženske odnose i dijaloge koji nisu označeni navodnicima. Sve u svemu, kupila me Olivia Sudjic, toliko da sam već naručila njen prvenac Sympathy i želim joj još mnogo ovakvih romana.

[Professor Weasel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The past keeps intruding. We are sick to death of it. I find I am not welcome in my own home. My own country.

I enjoyed "Sympathy" in 2017, and taught "Exposure" in a class I was teaching in 2019 (back when I still had a job lmao) and so I was interested and intrigued to read "Asylum Road." Well, I am IMPRESSED. It feels miles above these previous books in terms of theme and scope. The confidence and control exhibited in this novel was genuinely striking to me. Narrated in first person, I was often reminded of Elena Ferrante (specifically in the last quarter, which gets more and more unhinged and intense) and of Rachel Cusk (in terms of the icy distance of the first person).

Coming back was no homecoming for me. [...] I felt surer of my place there if I stayed away.

The novel is structured around the idea of movement and displacement. There is a couple’s trip to France. There are two family visits (one to Cornwall, one to Sarajevo). There is a move from one house to another, from a flat to a “commune” on the titular Asylum Road. Most significantly, there is the narrator’s move as a child from Bosnia to Glasgow, her parents choosing to stay behind despite the war.

What most impressed me about this book was its extremely well-controlled use of flashbacks. They are selective and intense, often arising in throwaway comments and single sentences, like this one: “Mira’s family had a dog, but a sniper shot it when it transpired dogs could anticipate a shelling.” It is SO well-handled. Bravo to the author! I also found the theme of how to recover from war and trauma deeply fascinating - especially in the scenes where a fridge magnet of the word ‘Sniper’ is being sold for tourists, along with pepper pots made of shrapnel.

It’s also worth saying that I often found the book very funny. Anya is often quite dryly observational, at one point comparing the self-confidence of engaged women to "expensive cats that have all been microchipped." The family dinner in Sarajevo is especially darkly comical (specifically the way she abruptly shouts out her big news), or the part with the bag of plums on the plane. It also sometimes reads like a thriller, in the way it handles the slow build of suspense, the unsettling details, the feeling that something awful is going to happen at any moment.

I also really liked how the themes of Brexit, Trump, climate change, and nationalism were handled. It’s subtle and not over the top (unlike Ali Smith’s Summer). It frankly came as a relief to read a work of fiction trying to grapple with the contemporary moment in such a sensitive and intelligent way. The theme of the mother’s Alzheimer’s was also well-handled - I hate being beaten over the head with ‘statements’ (the Iraqi taxi driver was maybe the one moment that was a bit too much) and overall I liked how this book let me figure things out for myself. The jellyfish description, for instance, was really beautiful and subtle.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the switch into third-person at the end - I think I understand why it happened - to show Anya’s distancing from herself - and I guess kudos for not using second-person! It all gets a bit rushed and harried and intense in the last 15% of the book (again, probably intentional). But it all paid off for me at the end. I really, really liked the final scene.

Really, really enjoyed this. This is one of the most intelligent and interesting books about the 21st-century that I’ve encountered.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5) Whether at a shared flat in London, staying with her fiancé Luke’s parents in Cornwall, or back in Bosnia for a rare visit to her family, Anya stands at a remove from her experiences. As she is stripped of everything she values – losing her luggage, quitting her PhD program, and finding that her relationship with Luke isn’t as stable as she assumed – her grasp on reality starts to weaken.

It took a very long time for me to figure out what this novel was about and where it was going. Anya is one of today’s endless stream of disaffected young female protagonists who make a mess of their lives. Her flat voice and iconoclastic attitude are reasonably appealing, but the lack of speech marks is more confusing than anything else, and any early similarity I noted to Deborah Levy and Ottessa Moshfegh only works to Sudjic’s disadvantage. I’ve added on a half-star (or maybe more like a star and a half) for a fantastic ending that goes all Muriel Spark and makes something of that dreadful cover. I suppose the title alludes to the places that promise refuge but ultimately deny it, but in terms of plot, theme and characters other than Anya, this mostly fails to hold together. The novel is supposed to be relevant and hot-button – Brexit! green technology! – but felt like a jumble of half-considered ideas.

(Note: there’s a dreadful typo on the top of page 213 in the Bloomsbury hardback: a “chicken coup” instead of a coop!)

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 4 out of 5]

Themes

• Cultural dislocation, especially when a person is forced to depart the country of their birth.
• Outsiders’ perception of the Balkans region of Europe
It is notable that the two prologue quotes are taken from Maria Todorova and Ivo Andrić (Yugoslavian who won the Nobel Prize for Literature ion 1961). The complications of Balkanism; of stereotypying, are clearly very much in Sudjic’s thoughts

Synopsis

Anya and her boyfriend/fiance Luke are in their early thirties. Instant random attraction, followed by domestic insularity and the expected marriage of the couple clearly marks out cracks in the relationship from the very start. The intense pressure of nuptial preparations projects Anya backwards in time as her many unreconciled family and personal issues are highlighted.
The book is divided into three distinct parts. Cornwall (around Mousehole) where Luke’s [parents live; Croatia/Bosnia/Serbia, Anya’s parental home; and London (Peckham- the Asylum Road commune) where the couple live, work and study (Anya for a PhD)

Highlights

• Mira (Anya’s late brother, Drago’s fiancé) :“Fornasetti woman”. I would read a novel centered on Mira .
• Anya’s father At the table he pulled the same trick he pulled on every first time guest Luke is presented with plate of resin spaghetti (161). How this resonated with me- and the potential for embarrassment is much greater than the party games which guests are apparently faced with at the British royal family’s Balmoral Estate (according to the Crown series 3)

Sudjic inserts a number of very clever, and original fact based associations in the text.
Some favourites of mine:

• In Cornwall Porthcurno attaches England to the rest of the world. (an amazing history of transatlantic cables)
• In Cambridge. "Welcome to Cambridge Home of Anglia Ruskin University".Greater Anglia provide a number of advertising opportunities!!!!
• In Glasgow. Robert Burns is quoted (as part of Anya;’s studies) Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! This ties in nicely with a sometime tame mouse running around in the house)
• In London. On a walk to the Thames Embankment near Parliament. A walk to the Embankment. ”the eels in the Thames were full of hormones and cocaine. I saw a roiling orgy of ells beneath the surface”(203). It’s a stretch, but could well be true.
• In Bosnia Edna O’Brien book- the butcher of Bosnia ( The Little Red Chairs ). This ties in to the recurring theme of murders (an original bond between Luke and Anya on radio podcasts)

There's a lot going on in Sudjic’s prose, and its fun to spot the connections and join up the dots.
While I enjoyed each of the three sections in the novel I think there are almost three distinct, separate, stories battling for primacy. Luke’s parents Ann and Michael (long time anti-vaxxers) are nicely set to develop as representative of an inward looking, insular England. The book was written during the drawn out national antagonism surrounding the “Brexit vote”. Then the Cornish exclusion stops dead. The backdrop to the inner London Asylum Road is also set up well, but I could have gladly done with more. It’s a book where the sum of the individual parts is excellent, but it suffers slightly as a whole.

Lowlights

• Anya describes her fifth anniversary of being together with Luke as a “Cishet relationship”. Really? Surely this is unnecessary.

Literary context

Anya’s sense of self and confidence is undermined by being with Luke. It’s not fists or shouts, but there’s a disequilibrium that reflects badly on Luke. Two novels which deal well with the subject of incompatibilities are Gwendoline Riley’s First Love and Louise Doughty’s Platform Seven . Asylum Road isn’t as overtly in the territory of “gaslighting”, but it’s an uncomfortable relationship for the reader looking on.

References to literature and literature figures include Sybille Bedford and Jenny Holzer (Lustmord the ‘cleansing’ during the Bosnian War). Shining a spotlight on obscure (but fascinating) feminist icons is very Ali Smith.

Questions

Christopher. A friend of Anya’s from Cambridge University keeps appearing as an absent muse- a voices off inspiration, a voice that keeps her grounded. It may be just be a good, non-explicit, writing technique to contrast the unseen Christopher with the unlovable Luke… but I was wanting Christopher to burst on to the scene and at least give us male readers some relief that some men are considerate and empathetic!

Pregnancy. Yes, no; meaning?

Author background & Reviews

Sudjic has written two previous books. Sympathy(2017) explores surveillance and identity in the internet age andh revolves around a twenty-something woman visiting New York who becomes obsessed with an older woman via the social media app Instagram. Exposure,(2018) is an essay on the anxiety epidemic, autofiction and internet feminism.

I watched Sudjic’s book launch on Instagram (28/1/21), in conversation with Lucia Osborne-Crowley. For a book with some dark themes, the chat was refreshingly light hearted and focused mainly on the structure of Sudjic’s writing style
• Anya as an anti-heroine. Would not want to spend longer than this book in her company. Is she an unreliable narrator? Anya has her own paranoia. She loses her grasp of affairs. Sudjic mentioned Gwendoline Riley’s book- why doesn’t the narrator leave? Hence the assertiveness at the end of Asylum Road is pleasing.
• Limbo. The Ivo Andric epigraph applies to Anya. Not at home in Sarajevo; not at home in her boyfriend’s flat.
• Lots of puns in the book (eg Mousehole)
• Sudjic did almost drive off a cliff
• Speaking about a book almost hinders it. Drawn into making grand statements. Much more subtlety in the written word. Spoken word is less ambiguous.
• Writing style. Seems to write about characters who lose their grip. Sudjic needs to go into a ‘worm-hole’ in order to write such characters.

Recommend

I thought this was great read. A disparate selection of ideas come together for what will be an amazing book to discuss with friends.

[Caoilinn]

Sudjic singularly conveys a feeling so specific to our time—a feeling only her prose can name, and which the reader will instantly recognise. The unsettled, unsettling atmosphere of this book resonates perfectly with its larger states of migration—to or from one's history, one's nation, one's loved ones; away from or towards one's darkest impulses. Smart, edgy and exacting, Asylum Road leaves so much unsaid, and shows us the consequences of that.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Asylum Road is a fragmented novel following a young woman during a transitory period in her life. Anya, a 31-year-old, escaped from Sarajevo as a child and moved to Glasgow where she was raised by relatives. She now lives in London with boyfriend, Luke, whose family are proud Cornish people and pro-Brexit.

The narrative jumps about with little warning between different locations - London, Cornwall, Glasgow, Split, Cambridge (where Anya studied at university), but the feeling of Anya's unsettledness and disconnect from her surroundings pervades, and the breakdown of her life as she knows it. The main focus of this is her crumbling relationship with the stoic Luke, who is prone to disappearing on her with little notice and being generally distant. The two travel to Anya's hometown to see her parents and sister on a road trip of sorts, and I found these sections to be some of the most memorable of the book.

I liked how Sudjic is sparing with her words but uses them to great effect; Anya's sense of uncertainty and discomfort in particular was well portrayed. The constantly shifting time periods left me feeling a bit untethered at times, scrambling to work out if x even happened before y or vice versa, and I felt quite distant and disconnected at times from what was happening as a result of this.

Despite my misgivings I'd recommend this, and look forward to checking out more of Sudjic's writing.

Thank you Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel felt rather scattered and fragmented. It jumps from one place to another and from the past to the present and back again. I found it challenging to keep up with it all and it occasionally felt forced and not quite finished yet. Interesting themes though, but I'm afraid the book didn't win me over.
2,5/3 stars

Thank you Bloomsbury and Netgalley for the ARC.

[Nora Eugénie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Novela muy irregular. La segunda parte me ha aburrido tanto que casi lo abandono. Luego me parecía que remontaba, pero al final se ha desinflado. No he conseguido empatizar ni entender a ninguno de los personajes. Es una novela bastante corta y aun así hay subtramas que me ha parecido que sobraban. Una pena porque lo compré con muchas ganas… :(

[Dylan Kakoulli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Asylum Road is an intimately detailed and fragmented novel, that following a young woman (Anya) during a rather turbulent and transitory period in her life.

Although Anya now lives in a seemingly stable life -studying for a PhD whilst living in London with her rather privileged, middles class British boyfriend, Luke (otherwise known as, ya typical cold, reserved and infuriatingly emotionally distant white man), her life wasn’t always this “rosy”.

Exploring themes of identity, movement and sense of displacement, we see how suppressed emotions, experiences and trauma from one’s past, can easily warp peoples perceptions of others, as well as their sense of security and belonging moving forward.

A Dark, lyrical and deeply unsettling read indeed.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on that ending -ooof !

4.5 stars

[Maria Calinescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

ooooo myyyy - this one's a heart-spark
rare to read a book about eastern europe / 'the balkans' that feels so true + also is great fiction
feels eerily familiar at points / slightly nauseating maybe as the narrator is so nauseous too
+ sudjic describes the flickering tensions in relationships + returning to parents' 'homeland' so sooo well
a great + scary + beautiful read! ! !

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have some ~thoughts~ about Olivia Sudjic's novel Asylum Road. First, I need to say: look at the cover! Look at it! I couldn't not order it from the UK, and I've been saying that if I keep ordering books from overseas that have beautiful covers, it's going to turn into a real problem. This review does have spoilers about the ending (which I've tagged towards the bottom), but the rest is just general analysis. Okay, enough said. Let's get into it:

It struck me then why it is that the English phrase - to drive home - means to make someone understand.

Olivia Sudjic's writing is undeniably beautiful. It's lyrical, smart, and deftly precise. The novel follows Anja/Anya, a PhD candidate from Croatia now living in London with her boyfriend Luke. From the first line, their relationship is worn out. They hardly speak, and when they do, there's a current of animosity surging between them. Anya, in her first-person narration, doesn't know how to talk to him. Maybe she never understood him to begin with. This is a true communication breakdown and the silences that fill this book are long and painful, indicative of two people trying to hold onto a love that left them long ago.

Anja is a complex character and trying to condense her intricacies down to a summary is impossible. Since the novel is all her first-person monologue, we know her best: her temperament, her anger, her insecurities. My problem with the portrayal of not only her character, but most characters in Asylum Road is that they feel underdeveloped. Their personalities are obscured, emerging at times, but mostly remaining below the surface. It's difficult to cling to Anja or Luke or any of the supporting characters because there aren't strongly discernible traits or histories. Part of this may be that we're already at the end. This is the deterioration of a relationship, and so the memories aren't at the forefront. These characters exist as painful reminders for Anja—a boyfriend who wasn't right, a family that isn't a focal point in her life. We can see Anja as someone who distances herself from people around her, for various reasons, but that distance can in turn create flat characters, or at the very least, characters who could benefitted from more depth.

For the first two parts of the novel—"Mousehole" and "Split", respectively—we follow Anja and Luke as they travel to their parents' houses. First, Luke's parents in Cornwall, England; later, Anja's family in Split, Croatia. Most of the novel is spent in the car, a central idea being that Anja never learned how to drive. Early in the novel, Luke proposes to Anja, though it's unclear if Luke believes he is still in love with Anja, if he thinks it will rekindle the parts of the relationship they've lost, or if it's just the thing to do. As we follow the newly-engaged Luke and Anja through the novel, Anja is haunted by the country she left behind. The past is coming up to surface, and memories of her escape from Sarajevo she tried to repress are like a phantom around her. She can't let go of the past. Perhaps it's not about "letting go," but finding an impossible balance of holding on and letting go at the same time.

These sections on Sarajevo are searing but sparse. There's a moment where Anja gets into a cab: the driver tells her he's from Iraq, that he was granted asylum, but sometimes wishes he wasn't. When asked if he ever wants to go back, he answers simply: "No." This brief moment encapsulates a striking question that Sudjic is posing throughout the novel: Does a country stop existing in us because we left it? Is it possible to ever stop living in a country, or is it something we have to keep carrying in our bodies? There are undercurrents of questions about national identity (especially when that identity is split between multiple nations) and Balkan history. We don't know enough about Anja before Luke. There are glimpses of her leaving Sarajevo and of her family in Croatia—but I wanted the threads of Balkan history and identity to tie more thoroughly into the rest of the novel. Instead, they're left as pieces to consider, absorb in, and consider on their own.

SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING

Going into Asylum Road, I knew there was discussion about the ending, but I didn't expect it to be so... infuriating? As a brief recap, Anja and Luke have called off their engagement after they visit Anja's family in Split. She asks Luke if he still loves her. There are long stretches of silence before Luke then asks her to move out, maybe for a few days. It's clear that this proposal was hopeful: it tried to repair what was broken, but it wouldn't have remedied their love for one another. After months apart from one another, Luke sees Anja. (Earlier, Anja had lost essential research from her PhD candidacy at an airport, causing her to resign from the program. Towards the novel's end, the airport finds the missing items and Luke delivers them to Anja.)

It's clear that Luke and Anja are never going back in time. They haven't seen one another in a while, and they're still resting on uncomfortable silences. Anja tells him she's been practicing driving and wants to show him. In a truly psychotic ending, Anja careens the car down the road. She floors the gas, speeding a horrified Luke into their assumed deaths. My issue with this ending is not the ending itself, but that the rest of the novel have the stakes to support a bold, definitive ending like this. I threw the book closed, feeling let down in some way. The ending makes no sense. Through slow and unsatisfactory character development and vague incorporation of the idea of “asylum,” the ending feels out-of-place. Luke is never established as someone who deserves this fate, and Anja is never understood to be this vindictive. Their last meeting was a moment that I wanted to last a little longer. Seeing them in the car together, knowing they can never be together again, but maybe Anja has learned how to put the past in the ‘rear view’ and live for herself more authentically. That no, she will never love Luke again. If they never see each other at all after this, maybe that will be all right. But this isn’t the ending we’re given. It’s quick, abrasive, and the characters we’ve seen grow through Anja’s interior perspective don’t move us towards an ending like this.

Though it does put new light into the opening line.

Sometimes it felt like the murders kept us together.

This is a novel I wanted to have work a lot better. Many of the pieces are here, but they don’t all fit together. I wanted to know the characters more. Luke and Anja’s families, their stories. I wanted to see Luke in the way Anja saw him in the beginning. And more insight into Anja’s memories of Sarajevo. What lies inside Asylum Road is pensive and darkly gorgeous, but ultimately I don’t know if that redeems itself for a narrative that seems like with more character depth, it could’ve been exceptional. The hot take I keep coming around to is: Asylum Road leads to a dead end, but I don’t think that’s fair. Asylum Road is a necessary account of safety, national identities, communication, and what comes after the end of love. Despite everything, I love the last scene, before Anja puts her foot on the acceleration. It’s her and Luke in the car. Their positions are reversed. She’s driving this time. Before she makes a move, it feels like there’s something about the ‘before’ here. Anja is finding her way home.

[cass krug · Rating 4 out of 5]

this one didn’t hit as hard for me as sympathy and exposure did, but still an interesting novel! i’m personally lacking some context about the history of the balkans and the war the narrator escaped from, so needed to do some research while reading.

anya and her boyfriend luke embark on multiple different road trips throughout this novel, uncovering the reasons why her familial relationships are strained as well as the breakdown of her romantic relationship with luke. sudjic is exploring history and culture and their effects on a woman’s life path, the way she’s been alienated and on edge because of what has happened beyond her control. there’s a major sense of unease throughout the entire novel, culminating in a jaw-dropping ending.

this felt quite different to me from olivia sudjic’s previous books and i can’t wait to see what she releases next.

[Pauline · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

As disjointed and disorienting as the protagonist´s mind, which is clearly unraveling,evidently suffering from PTSD.Cleverly written. 9/10

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mi primer Olivia. Y me temo que el último. Empieza tan bien. Con esas frases tan sugerentes y esa Anya tan tarada. Hasta me gustaba lo que pretende la autora con un personaje como Luke. Pero todo el interés se esfuma durante el viaje. Y ni el final me ha salvado.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

this didn't do it for me. i think olivia sudjic might write a book adore one day because i love her writing but this one wasn't it. it didn't feel focussed enough i think so i didn't get the sense of fulfillment or closure from the plot that i needed

[Marina Ortega · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.cargadaconlibros.com/mini...

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Asylum Road is a novel about things breaking down, and a protagonist who has packed away her past. On a French holiday, Anya's boyfriend proposes, but she has misgivings about their relationship. They visit his parents in Cornwall, where her childhood comes up again: her move from Sarajevo to Glasgow, and her parents who stayed behind. Finally, Anya agrees they should visit her family to tell them the news, but going back exposes more cracks, and the summer reaches boiling point

At its heart, this is a novel about a woman's relationships—with her boyfriend, her family, and her past—and how these all come to a head one summer. The book is written in the first person (except one notable exception, a third person section that made me think for a moment that it was a mistake) in distinctive prose, which worked well to get across Anya's uncertain mental state, with moments of flashback woven into the larger narrative. The writing gets across awkwardness very well, in particular a dinner with Anya's family in which she has to translate for her boyfriend, and you get drawn into the choices of action and inaction that Anya takes. However, I didn't always feel engaged with the book, with elements that didn't seem explained or developed, which made me feel quite ambivalent about it in general.

This is a short novel that builds tension as the protagonist deals and fails to deal with her life, whilst exploring present and past political moments. It's a decent book, but I didn't find it as sharp or engaging as expected, possibly because it wasn't as weird or dark as it seemed to set up. Fans of modern novels that similarly explore a female protagonist's alienated outlook will likely enjoy it, and the exploration of Anya's childhood, family, and heritage is interesting and considers how people might view the Balkans in the present day, as outsiders or as people who left.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure why I’m surprised by how much I loved this; I adored Sudjic’s millennial wonder Sympathy a few years ago. This is definitely more confident and intricate and I love seeing a writer develop and stretch those muscles. It’s a book about borders, relationships and identity. It’s a book and Brexit and the Balkans. It’s a book about a woman on the brink. What makes it even more remarkable is the writing – dark, lyrical, cynical. The tone evokes dread and melancholia at every turn. If that’s your vibe, and it’s definitely mine, then you will love this.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down

"Sometimes it felt like the murders kept us together. I’d suggested taking a break, which turned into the holiday, to remedy our real problems–but I knew we’d need one more for the road. They distracted me from my thoughts, from his silences. Murders and holidays were a quick fix that worked."

Primarily narrated by Anya this is an interesting novel that considers a number of themes. Anya's history lies in Sarajevo, and her family has strong links to the unrest in the city and surrounds. Anya, sent to an Aunt in Scotland and now studying in London, is very much removed from her family and this is further highlighted by the visit she makes, with fiancé Luke. Luke meanwhile, works in the city and comes from a financially comfortable family.

The juxtapositions of class, wealth, family ties, trauma and more make, on the whole, for an interesting read. Imagery of roads, tunnels and road trips, clever devices and prose, the slow revel within the narrative, the spiral into depression - there is a lot to take in and this would be an excellent novel for discussion. For all of that there was still something missing for me.

[Michelle Leung · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first line is : “ sometimes it felt like the murders kept us together” … and it’s never what it seems. A book with depth and uncertainty- surprising me at every turn.

When the story starts, our narrator Anya takes us on a road trip with her boyfriend Luke and you really feel they are on a the verge of a break up- but instead he proposes. The book revolves around a series of road trips, and the unresolved trauma of her past is slowly revealed. From scenes of the past of the family’s forced displacement in Sarajevo to her brother’s suicide to scenes of her meeting Luke’s parents and a reunion with her own. You get the sense that Anya wants to escape , constantly trying to find the exit off the highway. Everything culminates to an explosive “final” (?) road trip and satisfying closure.

At a sentence level, Olivia’s writing astonishes me. Lit fic at its finest .

[Anna Baillie-Karas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this on impulse because I liked the cover and it was recommended by Daisy Johnson and Avni Doshi. I’m glad I read it.

A young woman lives with the trauma of the Balkan war. She finds security in her relationship with Luke but the ‘normality’ is a pretence and her suppressed fear, grief and anger spill over, at odds with Luke’s comfortable upbringing. Gives an insight into the ripple effects of war on families and what it’s like to live with trauma. Great sense of place & we feel for Anya as she’s caught between two worlds, struggles to belong and loses her grip. Feels true.

It’s been compared with Elena Ferrante and has similar naturalistic writing.