See captures the common struggles of single parenthood in pithy, poignant lines that convey how quickly the little mishaps of day-to-day living can spark a downward spiral of anger and guilt when mental illness is a factor. Benjamin is devoted to his daughter and single-mindedly committed to ensuring she grows up happy, healthy, and sane. Propelled by a determination to be different from his unstable mother or absentee father, Benjamin’s resolve to protect Sophia ultimately drives a painful wedge between them as she matures.
See captures Benjamin’s mental health struggles with unflinching clarity, detailing the creeping in of destructive thoughts and highlighting Benjamin’s use of music and compulsive routines to handle them. Benjamin’s enduring love for Anna and immovable belief that they’re meant to be together smacks of obsession; therapy sessions and advice from a colleague illuminate the underlying toxicity in the relationship when Anna and Keith rekindle their friendship with Benjamin. Readers who stick with Benjamin through these ups and downs will find their way to a satisfying ending. See’s tenderly frank portrayal of single parenthood within the miasma of anxiety and depression will have readers engrossed.
Takeaway: Single parents and anyone who’s had to cope with mental illness will find much they can relate to in See’s poignant and honest tale of parenthood on the rocks.
Great for fans of: Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive, Mira T. Lee’s Everything Here Is Beautiful, Adam Haslett’s Imagine Me Gone.
Production grades
Cover: C+
Design and typography: B+
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B-
Marketing copy: A
See offers a novel about a mentally ill man seeking inner peace while raising a young daughter.
Los Angeles veterinary technician Benjamin Bradford feels as if he’s living a double life. On the one hand, he does his job well and manages to successfully take care of his child, Sophia; on the other, he’s persistently struggling with the stress of mental illness—“this place inside, where I hear the voices and do battle with all my selves.” Bradford shares his thoughts with Cassandra,the therapist he’s been seeing for nine years, whom he describes as having “a kind of serene and celestial otherness to her.” In his sessions, he worries about his ability to raise a daughter in a healthy environment when he constantly feels like he could lose control; indeed, he berates himself for every time he’s raised his voice to Sophia despite his therapist’s advice that he cut himself some slack. This is difficult for Bradford to do, as mental illness runs in his family, afflicting both his mother and his grandmother, and his father disappeared from his life when he was very young, giving him tense, ambivalent feelings about fatherhood: “A father,” he reflects at one point, “is a ghost, someone who walks out on you, and leaves a hole in your heart.” When Bradford receives an invitation to the wedding of his best friend, Keith Ramsey, and his former love, Anna Robertson,he’s engulfed by memories of their shared college days in the 1990s. Pleasant recollections lead to traumatic ones, which add further depth to this heavily retrospective novel.
See carefully and skillfully balances the present and past in his narrative, although the prolonged flashbacks inevitably slow the present-day storyline’s momentum. As tensions mount between father and daughter, and as Sophia rebels against Bradford’s moodiness and caution, readers are treated to dramatic scenes with powerful exchanges: “Just because you have no friends and no life, doesn’t mean you can force me to stay home and watch you be miserable,” Sophia says at one point. “Why can’t you just let me live my life?” But as well-written as these scenes are, they have to perform double duty; they not only need to move readers emotionally, but also extract them from long stretches of 1990s-set narrative, which get lost in excessive period trivia. It’s tough to balance a delicate portrayal of a father-daughter dynamic amid seemingly endless references to the Beastie Boys, Roxy Music, Nirvana, mixtapes, and boom boxes, although See generally manages to succeed, nonetheless. That said, readers will find that even two-thirds of the way into the book, very little has happened to present-day Bradford, who’s still at the same job, still talking to the same therapist, still having occasional flare-ups with his daughter, and still pining after the lost Anna. Although the author is an unfailingly energetic guide, some readers will likely wish that the narrative had a bit more get-up-and-go.
An emotionally powerful but structurally awkward novel about a troubled man’s quest for redemption.
