THE MOST by Jessica Anthony

A few pages into Jessica Anthony’s subtly devastating novella, I thought I had the sense of what was going on. It’s an unseasonably warm November morning in 1957, and Katie Beckett, middle-aged stay-at-home mum, gets into the small pool in her apartment block and decides she isn’t going to get out. Her husband, Virgil, is at his wits’ end. Her kids think it’s hilarious but want breakfast. Right, so it’s a Bartleby thing. She’s refusing to bend to whats expected of women of her era. Love it. Except that’s not what The Most is about at all.

Rather, Anthony picks apart the Becketts’ lives, full of thwarted dreams, missed opportunities, lost loves and messy, messy affairs. Theirs is the American dream turned sour. Katie floats in the pool, a purgatory of sorts, mulling over their past, as she builds the strength to bring it all to a head. She will confront Virgil, lay bear his indiscretions. But how, when hers are just as bad? Anthony keeps a tight hold on the strings, and like the proverbial frog in the pot, it’s too late by the time we realise we’re cooked. Masterful.

The Most by Jessica Anthony
Doubleday, 2024
133 pages