Paula Xiberras
Last year I spoke to the lovely and accomplished author Polly Samson from her home in the UK. We were chatting about her latest novel ‘The Kindness’.
Somewhere tucked away in Polly Samson’s novel ‘The Kindness’ is a conversation among characters, one being a medical researcher who explains some work he is doing on ‘Capgras Delusion’, named for the French doctor who discovered the condition. ‘Capgras delusion’ is a disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member (or pet) has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor’.(Wikepedia)
Although a literal, physical replacement of an ‘identical looking imposter’ does not occur in the novel however, metaphorically a character in their actions might be seen as those of an ‘imposter, even if those actions were done as the title suggests ‘as a kindness’
The novel is about the love story of the aptly named Julia and Julian, their union seems to be a marriage of soulmates. Julia arrives at the marriage after an unhappy partnership with a man who keeps her captive, in the same way he keeps his pet falcon that he gets Julia to regularly takes out for its and her brief moments of freedom (An interesting fact is that Polly did a course in falconry to prepare for the detailed description in this part of the novel). It is at one such moment of freedom that Julia meets Julian, hauntingly the background of their meeting features the sound of the falcon dealing with its prey, perhaps an ominous warning of how their love might cause them to ‘devour’ each other. The couple marry and go on to achieve perfect happiness with the eventual birth of their daughter Mira. The young baby Mira is described by Polly in an example of the most perfect imagery that is a hallmark of Polly’s writing. In describing the newborn Mia as angelic in how ‘her fingers play an invisible harp’.
The happiness at Mira’s birth is juxtaposed by incomprehensible sadness when Mira becomes ill with a life threatening illness.
Which brings us to the main theme of the novel, a discussion of what is family? It is true stories from Polly’s own life that inspire, inform and attempt to answer this question. As well as her mum and dad, another male would be a father figure to Polly in her life. In her novel Polly considers that genetic parenthood is only one of the ways of becoming a family.
A tender symbolism employed in the novel is a parent treasuring a baby shoe. This event was taken from her own life when she discovered that one of her own ‘fathers’ had kept one of her baby shoes. In the novel Julian retains the baby shoe of his daughter Mira and one day when she is all grown up shows her the shoe.
“the little shoe was red leather scuffed to pink across the toes she sat on his chair and pulled the strap back and forth through the silver buckle fixed it at its usual hole (and) looked up and smiled at him.”
This scene perhaps illustrates that all families, however they are formed have moments of displacement but beneath it all there is the fundamental desire to fit together and ‘The Kindness’ reminds us that worthwhile relationships require work and many attempts before they, like the shoe fit into place.
‘The Kindness’ is published by Bloomsbury.
