Malagash

By: Joey Comeau / Narrated By: Jenna Lamia

Length: 2 hrs and 26 mins

Odd little story. Lovely but maaaybe better Read than Listened to.

The first time I started writing this review, I’d said that I WAS fond of narrator Jenna Lamia, but thennnn, I decided to go back to an old review to make sure that was the case. Uhm, I’d had reservations about her performance then, so I’ve reeeally gotta state up front right here that, wellll…

You see, in THAT review I’d said that her vocal gyrations were a tad annoying, a tad hard on the old ears. And it’s sooo true here. At the very end of Malagash, the credits were said, and a Dialect Coach was given kudos. This made sense as our young heroine, Sunday, has a grandmother in Malagash in Nova Scotia. Apparently grandma is s’posed to speak with a bit of French in there, and while Lamia SOUNDS like she’s attempting SOMEthing, she in no way gets an authentic feel to grandma’s heritage. When you add this failing with an accent that’s just plain weird to the entirety of the story, with an Uncle full of feigned bonhomie, and Uncle’s husband being from Haiti? When Sunday’s dying dad goes for excessively wry and jocular?

Oy vey.

This COULD’VE been a reeeally powerful little story of both anticipatory grief, and grief and sorrow fully realized. Actually, it IS, it’s just that it coulda brought the house down, as I dearly love to sob loudly, long and hard. Ugly-Crying is m’ forte.

Sunday’s family has moved back to Malagash so that her father may die from his cancer near kin. Dad addresses his death in one way, Mom another, her little brother known as The Waif in another way as well. And Sunday, a techno-genius, is flailing in quicksand, desperately recording absolutely every utterance from Dad, going so far as to prop her phone in hidden places so that she might capture private conversations. If Dad sniffles, if he jokes, if he soothes, if he weeps. Sunday wants it, tapes it, and transcribes it all, even as she works to write code to make his every articulation a virus that will go out into the world, making him live forever.

…And that’s about it… Seriously…

What with Lamia’s exCESsively odd narration, this coulda been 2 1/2 hours of annoyance.

But it’s not. At least, not totally.

Anyone who’s been gifted with extra time to say goodbye to a much-loved one knows the heartache of When Will It Happen? I Don’t Want You To Die. -and- How Do I Keep You Alive, Forever?

That this week’s Listening included Irving and Marilyn Yalom’s A Matter of Death and Life has me putting these two audiobooks together, weighing each, assessing (And I admit it: Judging… I KNOW, right? Bad End of Life Doula, BAD!!!) and commenting.

If you want to feel true grief, and if you’d like to know how to accept it and live to sing a song to the bereaved, listen to Malagash instead of Yalom’s treatise. Sunday, tho’ she wants her father to live, most desperately, displays a courage in the face of death (And when it happens to someone not even in his 40s? Yalom -dude- Now THAT is a tragedy!) that is otherworldly. She knows grief before it happens, walks hand in hand with it, even as the little family faces the inevitable with wryness, with the final “Goodbye Forever” as they leave their dad/husband each night after visiting hours.

I’m happy to put this audiobook in our Technology section as this is truly fine fiction for somebody with an astute mind: This is how you navigate grief when you’re so inclined. You keep it outside yourself, bringing it in in tiny sips as you ponder and craft, as you test the virus’s mettle, its ability to go on, live on, forever and ever. You keep pain in front of you so that when it creeps its way in you can feel the agony, shout in hurt and anger, and then remove yourself once again.

A fine little book, and tho’ I knew what it was about, I was taken by surprise when I felt tears start in my eyes. Author Joey Comeau was stringing me along, with the dark humor being batted back and forth between the family members, and then he crept up, blindsided me with the inevitable, the rawness of it all.

Don’t understand the title, tho’ it appears to be drawn in at the end. Don’t understand how I like this, when usually I like at least a little bit o’ plot.

Nope, just a slice of Death biting into Life, the day-to-day(ness) of tragedy that we all seem to survive, letting people let go, like we have a choice in the matter.

Simply lovely, tho’ truly: Probably a better read. Sorry, Ms. Lamia—you tried too hard. But bravo, Mr. Comeau—you did it juuust right.