Alby is in pain. A pain that he can’t control and isn’t prepared to admit, a pain driving him to lash out indiscriminately at whatever comes into his path, a pain that cannot be hidden by his matter-of-fact observations and blasé attempts at jocular vulgarity – the hideous abyss of losing his mother to can- cer. In a narrative as seemingly purposeless as Alby’s life, Matt Sumell’s debut novel ricochets from past to present and back again, providing the reader with fleeting – yet painstakingly detailed – glimpses of Alby’s failed attempts at love and life.

Far from an easy or pleasant read, Making Nice intersperses episodes of incoherent rage and violence with rare flashes of wit and mocking self-re- flection, all with an underlying sense of self-awareness of its own confusion and aimlessness. It even goes so far as to include a ‘Testy’ chapter at almost the exact halfway point of the book, encouraging the reader to consider the author’s intentions and revelations in particular passages that seems to laugh in the face of book clubs and reviewers alike. Making Nice seems to defy explanation or analysis, lacking any moral to learn and avoiding all but the tiniest aspect of resolution; the novel is as unapologetic in its outlook as its protagonist.

Alby is a man ill at ease with the world and with himself. He prefers inter- actions with animals – dogs and birds mostly – and finds them far simpler to cope with than his family or women. The few moments of tenderness and affection that we see are always in connection to his pets, whether in his care of Gary, the doomed baby bird that Alby rescues and cares for in the wake of his mother’s death, or to the various family dogs. These come in sharp contrast to the violence he metes out to his equally distraught family and the crass dis- dain of his relationships with women. Like his narrative, Alby pulls no punch- es, although he is often too drunk or high to make them connect with the target of his aggression, in both a literal and a figurative sense. Since he was incapable of fighting against his mother’s illness or her subsequent passing, he thus renders himself incapable of functioning in the real world.

Making Nice seems to defy explanation or analysis, lacking any moral to learn and avoiding all but the tiniest aspect of resolution

Somewhat redolent of Catcher in the Rye in its unchanging protagonist and aimlessness of movement, Making Nice questions the purpose of a novel and tests the reader’s capacity to empathise with a hero who is not heroic, who stumbles from illogical decisions to irrational reactions in a narrative designed to baffle the reader. But despite this alienation from the world and from his readers, it is remarkably simple to identify with a pain as timeless and as inevitable as Alby’s; our parents will die, some earlier than others and all far sooner than we would ever wish, and we are powerless to stop it. Therefore the pointlessness of Alby’s rage is balanced by a shared instinctive understanding that persuades the reader to plough on through this challenging, ferocious debut.

Kathryn Kaiser