A riveting and unsettling novel about one man’s experience with mental illness, If Only begins when the unnamed protagonist is caught by the police while wandering around Saint James’s Park with a bag full of explosives and ten letters written by British novelist Malcolm Lowry (Under the Volcano). In the prologue, we see a young Lowry “exiled” from his country by his father. As the psychiatrist and the policeman question the protagonist, he remains obstinate and silent but every question triggers off thoughts in his mind, which reveal his story to readers. The daring narrative is interspersed with letters that Malcolm Lowry sent to the protagonist’s grandfather at different times in Lowry’s life, and from different places. They detail his angst-ridden life, his descent into alcoholism, the separation from his wife and finally his brief success as a writer. The clever use of these letters to draw attention to the similarities to the protagonist's life—his fondness for drink, his dislike of the society of wealth and privilege he was born into and his mental health issues— is effective. In his work as a cameraman for adult movies, the protagonist visits the places that Lowry mentions in the letters. Tree’s language is exceptional and expresses the agony, the isolation, and the anger felt by the protagonist and portrays his fantasies of imagined violence in graphic detail. However in this English translation of a novel originally published in Catalan and Spanish, the voice of the Lowry letters sounds similar to the protagonist’s, which undermines the device.
If Only is an immersive read with a memorable sense of play, danger, and humanity. It will leave the reader with a better understanding of mental illness, as the book takes us into the deep crevices of an obsessed mind.
Takeaway: This accomplished novel in translation plunges readers into the depths of a mind that is not quite in control of itself.
Great for fans of: Richard Yates’ Disturbing the Peace, John Williams’s Nothing but the Night.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
