Review by Paul Taylor-McCartney of "raw content" by Naomi Booth

 

Naomi Booth’s latest fiction is a profound and visceral journey into the terrors and fears of new motherhood. This topic is not entirely new territory for the author. Her post-apocalyptic novel, Sealed, centred on a condition that seals people in their own bodies. Booth may have shifted genre, but she revisits and reworks some familiar themes, here: the fear of losing control, bodily imprisonment and strange, otherworldly compulsions. 

The premise is a straightforward one. The novel’s narrator, Grace, reads and edits legal case files, updating judgements with speed and accuracy. This is a world she fully controls, far away from the Colne Valley landscape of her childhood and backdrop for the infamous Moors Murders. It is only when Grace finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she is forced to accommodate both boyfriend and newborn into her life. 

Almost immediately, Grace’s imagination begins to concoct a series of nightmarish scenarios in which her newborn, Rosa, suffers all sorts of horrific injuries and deaths: ‘The tiled hallway is a long way below us and the distance makes me feel woozy. The ground floor seems to accelerate away from us. I watch Rosa spill from my arms ... I hear the sick sound of overripe fruit splitting against a hard surface.’ Other, equally gruesome fantasies are presented, usually involving everyday objects and people: kitchen scissors, phone chargers, cleaning products, cigarette lighters, boiling kettles and even visiting family members; all become viable threats. Booth’s skill here is that she employs the present-tense mode to have us believe these episodes are unfolding in real time. Grace’s visions and reactions - which are genuine and all-consuming to her - become that for the reader. This is further amplified by the fact that Grace and Rosa are never apart – seen in the infant’s all-consuming need for milk – and provide the novel with some of its most arresting descriptions of physical and emotional, two-way dependency: ‘Half-blind, she gasps all night long, searching for me with her mouth, searching for me with her tiny broken cry, never settling out of my arms.’

Structurally-speaking, the narrative moves smoothly between present and past timelines, helping the reader uncover Grace’s repressed, family history and the reasons for her current behaviour. Here, the landscape comes to fore, the open moors charged with an ancient power and expansiveness, a world removed from the claustrophobic interior of Grace’s home. 

raw content is a highly charged, often terrifying, examination of how parenthood can transform both body and mind.  Booth’s message appears to be that none of us are safe: what constitutes the everyday, the knowable, can suddenly become one’s worst enemy, making raw content a timely reminder of the fragility of contemporary existence and a book that stays with you, long after its final page. 

About the reviewer
Dr. Paul Taylor-McCartney is a writer, researcher and lecturer living in Cornwall. His interests include dystopian studies, children’s literature and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in print and electronic form, including: Aesthetica, The Birmingham Journal of Language and Literature, Education in Practice & Writing in Practice (National Association of Writers in Education), Dyst: Literary Journal, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, The Crank and Bandit Fiction. His debut children’s novel, Sisters of the Pentacle, was recently published by Hermitage Press.

You can read more about raw content by Naomi Booth on Creative Writing at Leicester here.