REVIEW: ‘Exciting Times’ by Naoise Dolan
Image courtesy of Harper Collins / Provided by official site.
Naoise Dolan’s debut novel, Exciting Times, out now from Ecco, is a thoughtful, introspective look at a young Irish woman newly transplanted to Hong Kong and striving to find friends, a better-paying job and perhaps even love. Ava, the protagonist, is a person who adores language and has moved to the “special administrative region” to teach English to local schoolchildren. She finds the job unfulfilling — both on the motivational and economic fronts.
She starts out renting a room in a shared Airbnb, noticing the lack of privacy from both her flatmates and the resident cockroaches, but she’s seemingly stuck in the housing predicament because she doesn’t make enough money to live a more manageable life in Hong Kong, a metropolitan area known for its decadence and international business culture.
When Ava befriends Julian, a character defined by his profession: banker, an opportunity arises. The two begin a friendship, perhaps one could call it a partnership — a relationship that includes coffee, linguistic calisthenics and sex. They both don’t seem that interested in each other or making anything permanent, but they find a shared harmony and cohabitation in Julian’s swanky apartment doable, even agreeable.
The conversations between Ava and Julian are fascinating, and Dolan allows the reader to dissect not only the sparse, exacting dialogue between the two but also the inner-thoughts of Ava, who has a running commentary on the language choices one makes in this strange symbol system known as English. Her fascination (maybe an obsession) with words and grammar are likely because she’s an English teacher by day, and throughout the book she also defines certain relationships by dialogue, either over the phone like when she calls her mother, Mam, or via text message. There’s a real sense of the 21st-century dependence and life-changing devotion to social media, with references to everything from Instagram stories to the dot, dot, dot that appears in a text message conversation when the other person is typing.
Julian eventually leaves the picture for the middle part of the book (he’s called to Europe for a multi-month business trip, leaving Ava the apartment), allowing Dolan to focus on the real arc of the story: the introduction of Edith, a Hong Kong-born lawyer who becomes Ava’s friend and then her lover. The two fall for each other and explore what this newfound relationship means for themselves, their families and their finally identifying as queer.
Again, the conversations between Ava and Edith are revelatory to behold, and Dolan has given the reader such a gift by letting the audience be a fly on the wall and observe the ins and outs of a relationship coming together and then coming undone. Because, of course (and too inevitably), Julian comes home, and this three-star constellation is augmented once again.
Dolan is a real talent, elevating the micro to such a believable and authentic macro level. Throughout these 240-some pages, one begins to cheer for Ava, hoping she finds her way but also simultaneously knowing that life is difficult and “love at first sight” stories are hard to come by, if not completely impossible.
Some of the best passages in the book are when Ava is typing notes to herself, with the hope and possibility of one day copying and pasting the message into a text to either Julian or Edith. This allows the character to have an honest inner-monologue, almost a Shakespearean soliloquy for the Instagram age, and then Ava is split in two: the person who confronts her friends and new girlfriend, and the one who keeps her thoughts tucked away. The lack of proper capitalization and grammar on these text messages is also revealing, if not a tad unbelievable for a person who stresses the language of her interactions on a continual basis.
There’s a lot of Hong Kong’s culture in the book, with trips up the Mid-Levels escalators, a sunny retreat to Lamma Island, a beach visit to Stanley and multiple trips on the underground. This reviewer has lived in Hong Kong, and the descriptions of streets, markets, eateries and neighborhoods seemed spot on, achieving a nice transportive experience.
Dolan has done something special with Exciting Times. She has taken a woman’s journey out into the world and into herself, and made it necessary, authentic and considerate. It’s a story of queerness and love for the 21st century, one not restricted by the social media age, but embracing its undisputed truths and new forms of communicating. There’s a lot of struggle within these pages, and not much overt happiness. There’s consideration of class and disposable income, wealth and poverty, privilege and family, coming out and being one’s true self. The character study offers a stirring example of how words — and the use and abuse of those words — can shape and destroy.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan. Ecco. 256 pages. $27.99. Click here for more information.
