Lethe by Tricia Sullivan

Lethe was recommended to me in the book channel of a "Women in Tech" group. Alas, Slack's scrollback consumed the specifics of the recommendation. I remember it mentioning that Lethe is a fascinating book that you flash back to regularly even though it suffers from several not-insignificant flaws.

I would agree with that, though it appears there is a lot of discussion about what, exactly, those flaws are. Some argue that there's just so much going on, and as Sullivan doesn't take the time to spell it out for you, it's hard to find your footing.

I didn't struggle with this since we have two protagonists with straightforward problems.

Janae is seventeen. She feels disconnected from her twin sister and is growing increasingly concerned about her sister's mental state. She struggles to find meaning outside of work and cope with a world that doesn't feel like it has a place for her. Her coworkers worry about her as she digs deeper—too deep really—into her work.

Sure, these problems tie directly in with aquatic-human hybrids, psychic dolphins, monstrous cyclops tribes, disembodied brains interfaced with computers, and a war-ravaged earth both irradiated from nuclear bombs and toxic due to genetic, viral warfare.

It's a lot, but it doesn't matter if you don't "get" the cyclopses at first so long as you understand Janae's trepidation surrounding them. It doesn't matter if you "get" the disembodied brains so long as you can feel their power. The rest can trickle out throughout the narrative.

Opposite Janae is Daire. Because we need all the sci-fi elements possible in one book, he's fallen through a wormhole/portal of sorts into an idyllic world dominated by one mystical tree. Children populate the land; something strange and terrible happens when they reach adulthood. Daire must come to terms with his new location and try to tease apart its mysteries while he waits for rescue. Perhaps, with his knowledge, he can help these children.

Understanding this world is less complicated—Daire is a newcomer, so as he comes to understand things, we do too. That's not to say that everything in Daire's sections are on display; there's still plenty of mystery, it's just the sort you expect.

I thought this made for a good balance. Janae's sections felt grander, if more confusing. Daire's sections felt like a break where we got to dig into one thing with more depth. It was good to bounce between them, Janae's vast yet blurry world slowly coming into focus as Daire’s careful focus removes the fog of war on his new world.

I also love stories with two strong yet thoroughly separate storylines. They're inevitably going to affect each other, somehow, and I relish watching the author set up that eventual crossover.

So I don't mind a vast and somewhat bizarre world teeming with complicated sci-fi magic, and, clearly, the protagonists aren't a problem for me. They aren't larger-than-life and imminently likable or anything, but they are well characterized and easy to follow. They even get a boost from the supporting characters. Janae makes an unlikely friend that elevates much of her section, and Daire connects with the inhabitants of his new world in a way that allows his low-key personality to shine.

A+, no real complaints.

So where's the problem?

Janae has an emotional plot and an intellectual one.

The emotional one, involving her sister, is easy to follow, and it's easy to understand Janae's motivations and goals. At least for a while. Then it takes a turn and, as one would expect, Janae's character grows and changes. These changes are significant. Like, trophy-hunter-turns-vegan or person-with-phobia-of-dogs-volunteers-for-dog-rescue level of change, which is fine. The biggest changes are the most fascinating to watch. But there's the rub: we have to watch them change.

In Lethe, Janae's change happens over several highly influential months delegated to a few paragraphs of reflection. And when we meet the new Janae, the change is complete. Worse, she's somewhat jaded judgy of people who exhibit behaviors. So this isn't a case of "Janae's volunteering for a dog shelter despite her deep-seated fear of dogs," it's "Janae is so over dogs, they're boring, but she also doesn't think they deserve to be treated poorly, so she's mopping kennels and taking them for walks while sighing and rolling her eyes, especially at people she passes who are clearly afraid of dogs."

That huge shift in the emotional plot when months pass between chapters brings with it other problems.Her intellectual plot started straightforward—she wanted to uncover some hidden information—but things get a little loose after the jump. She wants to take this information and do something with it. What? It's kinda unclear. Why? That's definitely unclear. To what end? I'm pretty sure Janae hasn't thought that far ahead.

Worse than that, she's putting all of this energy into something dangerous, but she's also pretty passive about the outcome.

To continue the weird and imperfect dog-rescue analogy, it's like, "I will get this dog to the shelter ... but I don't care if the shelter is full or if it's been taken over by The Meat Industry* PETA and plans to euthanize all the dogs or whether it's owner is right there and I could just return it right now. I will drop it on the shelter's doorstep or die trying."

There's a significant disconnect there that cheapens the stakes.

So the plot becomes inscrutable; I lose the specifics of why they're doing what they're doing and am just following along, one brow permanently cocked going "Uhuh. I guess that's something they could do?" while new characters are lobbed into the mix with such frequency that I cannot be bothered to keep them straight or care about them in the slightest.

The final problem is there are tons of hints that don't pan out. A character says something enigmatic that hints at a bigger picture ... and we never hear about it again. Janae suspects someone of doing something unusual, then never brings it up, and the moment is forgotten forever. I kept thinking things were building towards a reveal that never came. And that seriously weakened the already kinda-weak ending. It's never good to close a book and go "What? I expected more," even if you did really like the first 250 pages of the novel.

And I did really like the first 250 pages of the novel.

So I can see what the original recommender meant. The ending doesn't ruin what's good about the novel at all; it simply feels like it doesn't do justice to wrapping things up. And since nothing is specifically ruined for me, my brain lingers on the parts that I did like, the parts where Janae struggled with her troubled world or where Daire came a little bit closer to understanding something mysterious.

Apparently, this is Sullivan's first novel, and I've seen it said by others that they're glad they read her other works first. I find this exciting; Lethe might have been overly ambitious, but Sullivan's talent is apparent. I'm looking forward to revisiting her writing. All-in-all, a good recommendation, and one I’m glad to have read despite its flaws.

*Please indulge me this, my one conspiracy theory: I’m pretty sure PETA is an organization created and run by the meat industry that just hires the most out-there vegans they can find to be the face of the organization and run horrible campaigns that’ll piss everyone off just to make vegans and people down with animals’ rights look like idiots and psychopaths. Seriously. What organization supposedly dedicated to improving the lives of animals would actively campaign against a measure to improve living conditions for factory cows? Because PETA did the meat industry a real solid by doing just that.

Cover art by Donato: