![]() ![]() ![]() Told in lyrical, first-person fragments as lush, brutal, and self-contained as the island itself, the novel’s remote setting occasions an extended study of isolation-the isolating effects of early motherhood, of food scarcity and substance use, and finally, of secrets kept from one’s self and loved ones. But those problems, foremost of all Paul’s opioid addiction, follow the family to the island, where they must be named in order to be understood, much like Rumpelstiltskin-the impish antagonist of Agnes’s favorite fairy tale. ![]() In Meghan Gilliss’s debut novel, Lungfish, out today, Tuck seeks to escape her problems by squatting with her husband, Paul, and toddler, Agnes, in her late grandmother’s cabin on an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine. Naming something implies it can be understood, perhaps even brought under control. The Rumpelstiltskin effect, in psychotherapy, refers to the power of naming a problem. ![]()
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