The Paper Wasp - Lauren Acampora

A claustraphobic miasma of obsession trembling beneath a veneer of measured normality grips the reader like a hypnotist’s victim. In some ways it was less like reading a book but more like entering a dream world or word dream. Abby and Elise - friends since schooldays, although friend is not really the word here. A mutually parasitic bond that is dark and stifling, Abby, flawed and needy, balancing precariously  on the brink of instability, Elise, less obviously flawed maybe but needy too, as she seeks to fuel that need through alcohol and a career as a Hollywood starlet. After some wasted years reconnection at a school reunion ultimately leads to Abby becoming Elise’s personal assistant. 

The whole narrative is presented to us from Abby’s perspective. So we have her flawed take on events. Her clairvoyant dreams convincing her that her path is the right one. But the reader is left wondering sometimes what is real and what is a dream. Especially the ending? And as the book progresses Abby’s obsessions are like nesting dolls, one is borne from another. I don't wish to give away too much more.

It’s an unsettling story, as themes of obsession usually are but there’s also an attempt to lay bare the shallow world of Hollywood and the fragility of the art world. People’s perception of their own selves are put under scrutiny. Is Abby really an exceptional artist? Or does she just believe she is? Can Elise really act or is she just part of the LA Studio conveyor belt?

A paper wasp gathers fibre from wood and plant stems which they mix with saliva and construct a nest out of the pulp they make from that. And there is a sense here of something being chewed and spat out not as an act of construction but as an act of expulsion.  Paper wasps, too, have a venom that can provoke a severe allergic reaction. It’s a a fine titular analogy.

It’s not the first novel with a female toxic friendship and it won’t be the last but it is an arresting debut that envelops the reader yet consistently keeps them slightly off balance with its tangential prose. The narrative flows, not smoothly exactly, for it mirrors the off balance, off kilter mental landscape of Abby. The characters we need to know are defined  and solid, nearly all bar one seem victims of Abby’s machinations. 

Thanks to Ana McLaughlin at riverrun for a copy of this story. It’s damn good.