- The Good: A timely novel about losing your home in a housing crisis
- The Bad: Speculative elements that don’t feel magical; a too-reluctant protagonist
- The Literary: Nods to specific fairy tales
Evie Cavallo finds herself homeless along with all the renters of New York City after the mayor signs a revitalization effort that turns all the city’s available rental housing into glorified Airbnbs. Evie can’t turn to her parents—they’re already dead, and her sister is institutionalized in Colorado. Instead, she leaves her stuff behind, locked in a basement, and journeys to a second cousin in a small Texas town named Gulluck.
I picked up this novel because it was described as a surrealist fairy tale, and it’s set in small-town Texas. It has many elements of a fairy tale, including a woman who lives in a shoe, a secret society with immortal members, talking animals, and magical keys. But over half the novel passes before any speculative elements emerge. Instead, be prepared for dystopia that’s depressing if you’re expecting magical realism.
I think my feeling about this book comes down to a protagonist I don’t like. Evie is very grounded and focuses entirely on what she’s lost. She’s a graphic designer from Brooklyn who has to move, feels lost and detached, doesn’t really like her remote job, and it takes her the entire novel to look up and see possibilities in her new life. She’s too reluctant for magic. She doesn’t have any joy or sense of wonder at the weird and miraculous.
Perhaps it’s just that the first half and the second half of the book are so different. The problems set up by the dystopian housing crises aren’t addressed or resolved. The whimsy and fantasy of the second half don’t seem to have any thematic ties to Evie’s internal journey. Finally, the story resolves with overly sweet sentimentality.
It turns out Dwelling is actually a very serious book about discontent and longing, family ties, turning a house into a home, loneliness and found communities, and the housing crisis. It just happens to have some fairy tale elements in there too.
Recommended for fans of contemporary fiction, or for those harboring lots of ill feelings toward their landlord.