‘A New New Me’ evaluation: Helen Oyeyemi’s novel is her weirdest but

Helen Oyeyemi’s books are getting weirder — and I imply that in one of the best ways.

“A New New Me,” her eighth novel, follows Kinga, a 40-year-old Polish lady who, on the Monday we meet her, turns into a Czech passport holder after having lately attained citizenship. She spends her morning crunching on the spot espresso granules, repeating Snoop Dogg’s each day affirmations, which she’s translated into Czech, and attempting on outfits.

After her appointment to choose up her passport — throughout which she has an odd encounter with a girl named Milica who insists on changing into her pal — Kinga goes to work. She’s a matchmaker employed by a giant financial institution that based her division in response to Czechia’s Constancy Awards, given to {couples} who’ve been collectively for 50 years or extra (in actuality, these have been floated by the Czech senate however by no means got here to be). At work, Kinga and her work spouse Eva evaluate their personalised information alerts: Eva receives updates in regards to the winner of three gold medals on the European rabbit leaping championships whereas Kinga’s cellphone tells her in regards to the Luxurious Enamel Posse, a gaggle that invades individuals’s houses and folds residents right into a suitcase together with free enamel and clean checks.

A lot whimsy barely 20 pages right into a e book may very well be overwhelming, however Oyeyemi is such a assured author, her particulars at all times particular and alive, that you understand you’re in good arms even in the event you’re not completely positive what materials these arms are manufactured from, the place they’re taking you, or how a lot they’ll jiggle and jostle you alongside the way in which.

After the primary chapter, we by no means meet that exact Kinga who opens the e book once more. It is because there are seven — or probably eight, relying on the way you rely — Kingas inhabiting a single thoughts and physique: Kinga-Alojzia is in control of Mondays, Kinga-Blažena of Tuesdays, Kinga-Casimira of Wednesdays and so forth till Kinga-Genovéva, whose realm is Sunday, earlier than the cycle begins yet again.

In a way, “A New New Me” is the closest the British writer has gotten to writing a thriller, as a result of on Monday night, Kinga-A finds a person tied up in her pantry and he or she has no concept how or why or who put him there. He does look considerably acquainted to her — and to among the different Kingas as properly — however she will be able to’t pin him down. Kinga-A’s suspicion is that one of many different Kingas is plotting to eliminate the remainder of them, and that this man is enjoying a component in that. Is he related to the Luxurious Enamel Posse? To Milica? Is he a secret lover? A pal? A stranger conning all of them? These potentialities and extra are explored over the course of the week, as every Kinga writes or information her day’s diary entry.

However how dependable are they? Kinga-A provides an summary of the others on Monday, however Kinga-B instantly refutes her summaries on Tuesday, and the opposite Kingas attempt to make peace, declare indifference, or specific their very own frustrations in flip, in order that by the point we get to Sunday, we’ve learn conflicting variations of some key moments within the Kingas’ life, and discovered that a few of them may be intentionally mendacity to the others. None of them are in a position to entry the others’ days, however they have been all, it appears, roughly current after they have been a part of their shared OG Kinga — earlier than, that’s, she requested Kingas A by way of G to take over and dwell her life full time.

Kinga, in different phrases, appears to have dissociative id dysfunction (or DID, beforehand generally known as a number of character dysfunction), a critical psychological sickness that begins in childhood and is linked to extreme trauma. It’s additionally a dysfunction that has gained loads of consideration in recent times as a result of social media making individuals who dwell with it extra seen.

But Oyeyemi’s novel doesn’t take care of her trauma. Equally, the Kingas aren’t within the means of “integrating” right into a single unified self (a typical — although not universally desired — therapeutic aim); they’ve discovered a psychiatrist, Dr. Holý, who’s completely completely satisfied to deal with them as they’re. Readers do study that there have been alternate Kingas since childhood, and that their dad is a prison who went to jail in some unspecified time in the future when Kinga was younger (solely one of many Kingas writes to him). After that, Kinga largely lived together with her grandparents — who appear to have been loving and current — within the Polish countryside, whereas her brother, Benek, and her mum traveled for Benek’s performing profession, an aspiration he had since he was a bit of child and which all of the Kingas helped assist and facilitate in a method or one other.

What is “A New New Me” about, then? As in all Oyeyemi’s writing: the chaotic and unpredictable nature of storytelling. What are tales? The place do they arrive from? How and why will we inform them? Speaking with different individuals is a continuing act of storytelling, in any case: We share anecdotes, we narrate our joys and fears and troubles to at least one one other, we agree on the shared story of our actuality (or we don’t), we curate our actuality otherwise relying on who we share it with. It follows, then, that speaking with the self, or facets of ourselves, is simply as a lot about understanding, decoding and framing our personal experiences by way of narrative.

There’s quite a bit occurring within the background of “A New New Me,” whose principal plotline swirls up and round unpredictably like self-serve fro-yo. Probably the most outstanding and evocative of those background shadow performs is the connection between Kinga and her brother, Benek, who we by no means truly meet, however whose life’s trajectory and profession have been made attainable by Kinga’s childhood sacrifices. It’s becoming and by some means ominous that Benek is an actor — he will get to strive on different characters for a dwelling and but can at all times return to himself, whereas Kinga truly lives as a collection of recurring however separate “characters,” which is to say, her totally different selves. I’m not completely positive what to make of this thriller brother haunting the novel, however it’s intriguing.

Along with getting weirder, Oyeyemi’s novels have been getting funnier over time, and her new-newest follows that development. Its humor exhibits up within the quirks of the Kingas’ personalities (“I’ll simply lounge round sending connoisseur vacationers spiraling by creating Tripadvisor listings and rave critiques for eating places that don’t exist.”), of their jobs (one among them is a perfumer’s muse; one other creates vacationer experiences involving manufacturing a disaster and having the consumer save the day) or just within the whimsical nature of the world they inhabit (see Luxurious Enamel Posse above). “A New New Me” is completely satisfying and could be very prone to reward repeat readings.

I’m off to start out it over once more myself.

Masad, a books and tradition critic, is the writer of the novel “All My Mom’s Lovers” and the forthcoming novel “Beings.”