The Book of Goose

“You cannot cut an apple with an apple. You cannot cut an orange with an orange. You can, if you have a knife, cut an apple or an orange. Or slice open the underbelly of a fish. Or, if your hands are steady enough and the blade is sharp enough, sever an umbilical cord.”

Two young girls, Agnès and Fabienne. An intense friendship.

“You can slash a book. There are different ways to measure depth, but not many readers measure a book's depth with a knife, making a cut from the first page all the way down to the last. Why not, I wonder.”

Fabienne is the mastermind. Agnès follows her lead.

“You can hand the knife to another person, betting with yourself how deep a wound he or she is willing to inflict. You can be the inflicter of the wound.”

Fabienne concocts a scheme to write a book. The book is about all the awful things that happen in their provincial village in France. Fabienne convinces Agnès to claim to be the sole author of the book.

“One half orange plus another half orange do not make a full orange again. And that is where my story begins. An orange that did not think itself good enough for a knife, and an orange that never dreamed of turning itself into a knife. Cut and be cut, neither interested me back then.”

Two young girls, Agnès and Fabienne. An intense friendship...

Cautionary note: This is not a thriller. Don't go into reading this novel expecting a story where characters are clearly defined. It is not a novel where a plot develops and things happen and other things happen as a result of those things.

Instead, this novel feels like a story that the characters told to the author, a story the author in which the author had no input, but a story with characters that feel very true, a story that feels very true.

I will say that when I closed the book, I felt disappointed. I wanted things to happen; things did not happen. I wanted big revelations; there are no big revelations. But as time went on after I finished the book, I liked the book more and more. I am still thinking about the book a day later. I will probably keep thinking about this book. By the end of the year, I may think it's one of the best books I read in 2023.