Ducks, Newburyport
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''Ducks, Newburyport'' is a 2019 novel by British author Lucy Ellmann. The novel is written in the
stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. It is usually in the form of an interior monologue which ...
narrative style, and mostly consists of a single long sentence that lists the main character's thoughts over the course of the novel. The novel includes the phrase "the fact that" more than 19,000 times. The book runs over 1000 pages. It won the 2019
Goldsmiths Prize The Goldsmiths Prize is a British literary award, founded in 2013 by Goldsmiths, University of London, in association with the ''New Statesman.'' It is awarded annually to a British or Irish piece of fiction that "breaks the mould or extends the ...
and was
shortlisted A short list or shortlist is a list of candidates for a job, prize, award, political position, etc., that has been reduced from a longer list of candidates (sometimes via intermediate lists known as "long lists"). The length of short lists varie ...
for the 2019
Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...
.


Plot

The novel's main character is an unnamed middle-aged woman who lives in Newcomerstown, Ohio. She is married, has four children, and was an adjunct college professor of history at the fictitious Peolia College. She narrates the novel from a first-person perspective and largely in present tense. She has been treated for at least two major health problems, including a heart defect as a child and cancer (possibly rectal) as an adult. She quit her college teaching job to recover from the cancer treatment. The narrator spends most of her time caring for her children and making pies and other baked goods, which she sells to local restaurants and shops to shore up her family's finances. She complains of constant exhaustion and is given to bouts of weeping. The narrator's stream-of-consciousness takes the form of an internal dialog in which she ponders a variety of topics, ideas, recollections, and individual words in an almost-continuous list that spans the entire novel. These include the following: what she happens to be doing at the present moment; baking and cooking; descriptions of her present-day family situation; recollections about her past; musings about individuals, family members, celebrities, and acquaintances; observations about classic American films (often
The Sound of Music ''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, '' The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. ...
or
Now, Voyager ''Now, Voyager'' is a 1942 American drama (film and television), drama film starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, and directed by Irving Rapper. The screenplay by Casey Robinson is based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Oli ...
); observations about her favorite books (often those of
Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...
,
Laura Ingalls Wilder Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American writer, teacher, and journalist. She is best known as the author of the children's book series ''Little House on the Prairie'', published between 1932 and 1 ...
, and
Lucy Maud Montgomery Lucy Maud Montgomery (November 30, 1874 – April 24, 1942), published as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a collection of novels, essays, short stories, and poetry beginning in 1908 with '' Anne of Green Gables''. Sh ...
); expressions of anxiety about national and global problems (often widespread pollution and climate change); and admissions of her own personal problems and shortcomings. She also simply free associates in long strings of similar-sounding words, names, and acronyms. She mentions so many abbreviations and acronyms, a glossary of them is provided in the print edition of the novel. The narrator explains that this unremitting inner dialog keeps her mind occupied so that she does not dwell on unpleasant realities (such as the doomed environment and the death of her mother), but this tactic evidently does not always succeed. The narrator repeatedly professes deep affection for her mother, whom she refers to as "Mommy." In one recollection, the narrator reveals that when her mother was a child, she (Mommy) was saved by a sister from drowning in a lake in
Newburyport, Massachusetts Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. A historic seaport with a vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes p ...
, after she went chasing after ducks. The word combinations "ducks, Newburyport" and "Newburyport, ducks" appear several times in the narrator's free-association. The narrator dwells on her mother's cancer and death at a relatively young age, which the narrator claims "broke" her. She considers the way that her life since her mother's death has been marked by grief and ennui, although she also celebrates the things that bring her joy in life, such as her second husband (Leo) and her children. In the course of the narrator's stream-of-consciousness various narrative incidents are revealed. In one, the narrator is delivering pies in the middle of winter when her car gets a flat tire. Having forgotten her cell phone, she waits in her car in the cold for help for an extended period before a tow-truck driver named Jesus saves her. In another incident of stranding, the narrator takes her children to the local shopping mall, where they are prevented from leaving by a severe rainstorm and flash flooding. The narrator often frets about global problems and how these might negatively affect her and her family. These problems include the following: climate change; the mistreatment of industrial livestock (especially chickens); viral pandemics; mass shootings and other forms of violence; economic uncertainty; and the U.S. presidency of Donald Trump. A frequently mentioned problem is the widespread pollution of the world's streams, lakes, and oceans by plastic, industrial chemicals, and pharmacological substances. The continuous stream-of-consciousness is interrupted only by short episodes of a story involving a mountain lioness. These interludes are revealed by a separate, omniscient narrator. They are inserted into the single-sentence narrative at intervals. Unlike the rest of the novel, the lioness episodes exhibit a more customary narrative structure, with discrete sentences, paragraphs, and a focused, cohesive story. In this sub-plot, the lioness (probably an eastern cougar) mates and then gives birth to a litter of cubs in the wilderness of Appalachia. Later, while the lioness is away from her den, the cubs are found and taken by humans. The lioness then roams West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in search of them. The novel includes a map of the lioness's circuitous quest, which describes a colossal spiral, terminating at Alligator Mound in Granville, Ohio. After each lioness episode, the single-sentence stream-of-consciousness narrative resumes.


Writing and publication

Most of the novel comprises a long sentence, broken in clauses and separated by commas and semi-colons. It uses "the fact that" as the phrase beginning many of these clauses. The novel was published by Galley Beggar Press in
Norwich, England Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...
after it was rejected by Ellmann's regular publisher,
Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...
. The North American publishing rights were bought by the Windsor, Canada-based publisher Biblioasis.


Reception

The novel has been widely critically acclaimed with some criticism, particularly of the length and difficulty of its prose style. According to
Book Marks ''Literary Hub'' or ''LitHub'' is a daily literary website that was launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and '' Electric Literatur ...
, the book received a "positive" consensus, based on twenty-one critics: twelve "rave", six "positive", and three "mixed". On Books in the Media, the book was rated 4.27 out of 5, based on eleven critic reviews. In the November/December 2019 issue of '' Bookmarks'', the book was scored 3.5 out of 5. The magazine's critical summary reads: "The Booker Prize nomination will bring Ellmann scores of new readers, but how many of them will stay the course with Ducks? As the ''Times'' (UK) put it: "This book is stuck between insanity and genius, arousing conflicting responses in the reader". A critic writing for ''
Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...
'' said the book was an example of "literary experimentation that, while surely innovative, could have made its point in a quarter the space", and compared it with '' Ulysses'' for its size and word association games. Katy Waldman, writing for ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'', called it an encyclopedic novel, a concept popularized by Edward Mendelson, as it renders "full range of knowledge and beliefs of a national culture". Nick Major, for '' The Herald'', said that he enjoyed the novel but could not tell what it was about, or decide whether "it's a masterpiece or a terrible splurge of fearful polemic and word association". A review in ''
Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
'' called the novel a monologue that "confronts the currents of contemporary America" and summed it up as "undoubtedly brilliant".


Awards

* Longlist, 2020 Prix Médicis étranger * Winner, 2019
Goldsmiths Prize The Goldsmiths Prize is a British literary award, founded in 2013 by Goldsmiths, University of London, in association with the ''New Statesman.'' It is awarded annually to a British or Irish piece of fiction that "breaks the mould or extends the ...
* Shortlist, 2019
Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...
* Winner, 2023 Kulturhuset Stadsteatern's International Literature Prize


Publication history

* 1,022 pages * 1,030 pages * 1,040 pages


Translations

* . Translated by Christophe Claro. Paris: Seuil. 2020. . * . Translated by Enrique Maldonado. Madrid: Automática Editorial. 2022. . * . Translated by Eva Åsefeldt. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. 2022. . * . Translated by Mahir Koçak. Ankara: Yedi Yayınları. 2023. .


References

{{Reflist, 2 2019 British novels Novels set in Ohio Postmodern novels Galley Beggar Press books Fiction set in 2017 Goldsmiths Prize–winning works