When society has passed you by, when you have to boil kelp for sustenance, every lived moment is a lesson in how to stay alive. At times she is fully consumed by her tasks at other times she's detached in a way that causes the reader to ache with loneliness. Tuck herself is a force, an embodiment of the ebb and flow of life. Survival strategies for humans are a lot more complicated. The book is gripping, descriptive, and full of poignant revelations of both the rawness of nature and of humanity. “Elsewhere in the world, lungfish survive droughts by coating themselves in mud and sinking deep into sleep,” Tuck points out. The hallucinatory and poetic prose, including gorgeous descriptions of the island’s natural beauty, feels right for a woman who is consumed with hunger not only for food but also for a semblance of normalcy and love. Narrated by Tuck, Gilliss’ debut novel paints an aching picture of life at the fringes of American society, capturing a pain that is nearly tearing the family apart. Meghan Gillisss Lungfish, out this past fall from Catapult Books and longlisted for the Center for Fictions 2022 First Novel Prize, is that rare novel of. It will be difficult to ever walk a beach again, picking up stones and examining the diversity of nature’s bounty without thinking of this book. Tuck’s traumatic childhood-abandoned by their parents, Tuck and her brother stitched together odd jobs to make ends meet-also casts a long shadow over her present circumstances. Lungfish is a compelling first novel, beautiful and engaging, as rich with insight and beauty as it is heavy with dark circumstances and feckless behavior.

Compounding matters is Paul’s recovery from drug addiction and his insensitivity to his young family’s needs. Wrung dry by hunger, they live on a remote island in the Gulf of Maine, squatters in a house passed down to Tuck’s father by her grandmother. Circumstances have pushed Tuck, Paul, and their daughter, Agnes, to the point of mere existence.

Lungfish by Meghan Gilliss