I wouldn’t have thought so until quite near the end but this novel reminded me of [b:No One Is Talking About This|53733106|No One Is Talking About This|Patricia Lockwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601474686l/53733106._SY75_.jpg|84057345]. Not in the style, not at all, but in containing two parts, the first of which has its protagonist in a soul-repressing frame of thought and existence, and the second in which the protagonist is quite traumatically jolted out of that into grace and agape. Both traumas involve the birth of a child, reflecting the power of life and its creation. They perhaps inadvertently argue for the great redemptive potential of tragedy: if not an answer to the great question of why God would allow terrible things to happen in the world, an illustration of how such things can sometimes produce profound changes on the personal level as one outcome. An uncomfortable argument to be sure.

The book’s protagonist, Jessica, is a researcher in evolutionary psychology who emerged from an abusive childhood with an idea that suicide is a beneficial evolutionary adaptation that increases the well-being of the suicide’s survivors. The seed of this theory was her abusive father’s suicide attempt when she was very young, and the first part of the novel details other situations from her life that she believes back up her theory (though as she also cynically notes, scientists often produce findings that only support their own prior beliefs; a very human tendency not just among scientists that is difficult for one to counter, of course).

On both the professional and personal level Jessica has what you might call an embrace of darkness, of pessimism about herself and a dubiousness of the value of life. She understandably then doesn’t want children and uses her partner’s desire to be a mother as a reason to split up despite them both being very much in love - something of a putting into practice her theory of suicides only on the plane of relationships.

I am again reminded that I am different, that I don’t see things the way other people do, that not everyone has something ugly inside them, that not everyone shares my filter, that my colleagues are not all secretly working to justify suicide as I am, that I am the odd one out. I realise that although I haven’t been deliberately hiding, Jamie still hasn’t seen me, the real me, yet. But eventually she will.

Jamie will be better off without her, she thinks. Jamie can have children with a partner who wants them and thus pass on her genes. At least Jessica’s literal death isn’t required in this instance.

The deep break with all this comes about due to two events, the birth of her niece and, you guessed it, a suicide. Caring for a baby leads her to reevaluate her perspective on herself and beliefs. It can be hard to sustain a deep pessimism when regularly gazing into the face of an infant, hard to devalue life when regularly holding a new one in your arms, perhaps (evolution knows what it’s doing?).

Am I someone new? Or have I always been this person and I just didn’t recognize it before? Wasn’t I cold and hard and broken and warped and full of regret and obsessed with death and suicide? Wasn’t I a person who couldn’t decide whether saving a life was the worst thing I’d ever done? Wasn’t that who I was until Savannah came along? Or have I been telling myself the wrong story?

The love surfaced by the baby’s birth changes her, and in combination with a shocking and traumatic suicide jolts her entire belief system.

I’ve changed jobs. I had to. How could I carry on researching suicide day in day out, surreptitiously trying to prove it was often for the best, that families should be somehow grateful for it, that it was in fact on some level done for their benefit? Although I knew better than to publicise them, I was so sure of my ideas, so sure of my work, my purpose, my mission. I was the one who was going to change everything, who would defend the act and make people see the truth, a truth to help them realise they didn’t have to feel sorrow or shame or regret, because evolution is working exactly as it should. I felt certain I was built for revealing this truth. I was sure it was my vocation, and I could never have imagined anything would make me feel differently. It turns out I didn’t have a very good imagination.

It makes for a terrific debut novel - philosophical and displaying a hopeful journey from pessimism to a superior widely encompassing love. Which, of course, supports my prior beliefs, so I would say that… ( )