Chrysalis

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Over the course of the novel it becomes clear that the woman is preparing for “the next phase” of her life where she will leave those who knew her behind, in favour of something else. The abandoned narrators watch the content that she creates and posts online: she is a wellness influencer of a sort and her strange videos are devoted to strength and stillness. “Variously all three narrators describe her as being made out of stone or carved from something, so it’s as if she becomes made of some natural material rather than a person. Something that’s more durable or more permanent than a person.”

Over the course of the novel it becomes clear that the woman is preparing for the ‘the next phase’ of her life where she will leave those she knew behind Character in flux Chrysalis might qualify as the most creative debut novel written in the past several years. The reason is simple: unlike novels like Sara Pascoe's Weirdo or Sheena Patel's I'm a Fan, Anna Metcalfe doesn't employ the usual format of having her thirty-something female protagonist tell her own story; instead, the young British author uses a trio of people in her protagonist's life to do the telling, a technique that's refreshing and very effective.

Simon’s not here,” I said. My throat was dry and the words came out strange. I coughed and then apologized. All the while she looked at me. “Try the desk,” I said, shifting my weight from leg to leg. Metcalfe was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award in 2014 for “Number Three”, a story that later appeared in her first collection of short stories, Blind Water Pass, published by John Murray in 2016.

Walking to the gym, I felt queasy, worse than if I hadn’t eaten anything. I paced up and down the car park. I took deep breaths and my stomach growled. When I got to reception, there was a new kid on the desk.

In trying to understand her through their perspectives, you slowly come to understand the narrators and their experiences. That form hopefully allows a reader to consider how the things that they look at—the things that they experience, the people that they see or encounter through their phones online—are forces that act upon them. To some extent, the things that you look at, or allow your attention to be consumed by, become constructive [or] destructive forces on yourself.” Things have changed a lot since that first day. She's kind of famous. Or at least, she has a lot of followers online. People admire her authenticity, her focus and determination. They say the way she holds her body is a kind of truth.”

AM: In terms of wanting, I spend much more time than I would like to admit looking at clothes on the internet. What is actually enjoyable about that is the choosing. There is something creative and interesting about choosing and thinking oh, I could be this kind of person in this kind of dress or that kind of person in that kind of dress. Actually, if I buy the thing and it arrives, the pleasure is over. The fun bit is in the choosing, not in the having. Like the best of literary fiction, in my view, this novel is mostly about interiority, is compelling and beautifully written, I will be thinking about the issues it raises long after I have closed the cover. What more can you ask of a book? Ms Metcalfe has been selected by the literary magazine, Granta, as one of its promising young, new British novelists, it was this list that first introduced me to her. Each of these three witnesses to the woman desires closeness. Each is left with only the husk of who she was before she became someone else: a woman on a singular and solitary path with the power to inspire and to influence her followers, for good and ill. We are more surprised when we see a woman refusing to conform to somebody else’s expectations of how they ought to behave.

10 Short Stories About Women’s Transformations

The following is from Anna Metcalfe's Chrysalis . Metcalfe was born in Germany. Her short fiction has been published in The Best British Short Stories, The Dublin Review, and Lighthouse Journal, among other places, and has been shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize and the Sunday Times Short Story Award. She is the author of a story collection, Blind Water Pass, which was published in the UK. She teaches creative writing at the University of Birmingham. Chrysalis is her first novel. AM: Completely. I suppose it’s embedded in the way we often talk about transformation, especially in the world of self-help. There’s a lot of discussion around how you can transform yourself, as if you exist completely in a vacuum. It would be more helpful for everyone who’s talking about transforming themselves to talk together about transforming things that might benefit everybody, transforming the social sphere. But there’s way more rhetoric about social transformation and taking control of the things you can control, that only affect you. It does suggest that we are all isolated dots that never really see each other or that you can, in some way, control everything for yourself and everything that affects you in your life. It’s just not true.