Drowning Practice (2022) by Mike Meginnis

 Book Review

Drowning Practice (2022)

by Mike Meginnis

  I've been really interested in the intersection of genre science fiction and literary fiction, particularly as it relates to the apocalypse/post-apocalyptic subgenre.  Much of the action in this space of the marketplace is with semi-succesful or already succesful writers of literary fiction adding science fiction themes in what I can only imagine is either an attempt to drive interest in the book or a legitimate reflection of growing interest in science fiction by writers of "serious fiction."  It's probably both.

  For me, the turning point was in 2017 when Kazuo Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize after publishing two heavily genre influenced work in a row- Never Let Me Go (2005) was a straight forward science fiction/dystopia set up, and The Buried Giant was reworking of what might be called "Arthurian fantasy."  At that point, it would be hard for anyone working in publishing to claim that science fiction or fantasy couldn't be serious literature.   

  In Drowning Practice, every human on Earth has the same dream which features an authority figure telling them that the world is going to end on November 1st.   This simultaneity of an event taking place across all of humanity is enough to convince everyone of the truth of the message.   The protagonists are Lyd, a semi-succesful writer of literary fiction who suffers from clinical depression, Mott, her unbelievably precocious 10 year old daughter, and David, her psychotic CIA spy of an ex-husband.  I gather from the reviews that the reader is supposed to be charmed by 10 year old Mott, who, I shit, you not, decides that the one thing she wants to do before the world ends is write a novel.

  Only in the universe of contemporary American literary fiction would a book about the end of the world give you not one but two characters who spend most of the book musing about the meaning of literature in the wider world.   So while I was more or less annoyed the entire time I was listening to the Audiobook, I did finish it, which says that Drowning Practice isn't insufferably boring despite the characters being obsessed with the progress of a novel written by a ten year old.   Also it's yet another work of American literary fiction where one of the major characters is a sad, wealthy, well-educated white woman who has ambivalent feelings towards motherhood.  Truly, truly, truly a subject I would avoid if I could.