Title:  Worthy

Author: G. M. Lupo          

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

 

Worthy follows the lives of three sisters, Regan, Rosalind, and Rhiannon Worthy, and the startlingly profound choices each woman makes in response to life’s challenges. When talented artist Regan dies, Rosalind is faced with her own mortality as well as her grief while Rhiannon struggles with single parenthood.

Rosalind decides to ensure that Regan’s spirit and creative vision continue for further generations and creates her surrogate daughter, Genevieve, with this philosophy in mind, irrespective of the future ramifications.

Worthy takes inspiration from Lupo’s play, Another Mother, and the book is fronted by two Shakespearean quotes. It’s hard not to find influence, given the names of two of the main protagonists, and there are fundamental elements from Shakespearean tragedy and comedy running through the narrative.

However, the novel ostensibly opens with chatty positivity as the reader is plunged into Regan’s journals addressed to Rosalind. It’s January 1964 and sixteen-year-old Regan has landed in Paris where she has won a scholarship to study at the Ecole d’Art Française.

Lupo packs a lot of information in these super-excited, teenaged-toned entries. They are light, fun, and gently intriguing. Nevertheless, within a few passages, Regan develops a crush on another student. Lupo cleverly begins to weave sub-textual levels of deeper complexity through Regan’s infectious, naïve chatter.

Further, the reader can build a tantalizing picture of Rosalind from Regan’s musings. There is something odd in their dynamic and it’s subtly unmistakable that despite Rosalind being the younger, she possesses a stronger, more mature personality.

Lupo employs several techniques throughout Worthy. Following Regan’s journal, the perspective switches to Rosalind undergoing cancer treatment, interleaved with backstory and inner monologuing.

The jaunty tempo is replaced by an uneasy, disconcerting tone complementing the story as it moves into dark territory and provoking curiosity as to where this already rather unusual tale is heading.

The youngest sister, Rhiannon, exhibits a similar vein of gullibility to Regan albeit with a touch of cunning. Although her daughter, Abigail, is integral to the novel, and to Genevieve, Rhiannon is a  little one-dimensional and underdeveloped.

As the reader becomes privy to Abigail and then Genevieve’s narrative, sentences become short, spare, and simple statements of fact. At this point, the writing shift heightens suspense and lends the pace a deranged energy, especially as Lupo introduces a number of thought-provoking issues and plot tangents.

Indeed, although Regan’s death and her paintings are the catalyst and commonality through the main narrative, the story moves in multiple, unexpected directions with additional characters. It’s compelling but occasionally confusing.

Nonetheless, Leah Walker is a strong addition. The development of her character as she becomes involved in Genevieve’s life is nicely handled. Elspeth Hawkins, although minor, is also well-observed.

Lupo introduces some ethical and moral debates in Worthy for which Rosalind is often the pivot or originator. She’s an interesting individual who remains an enigma but in a good, puzzling way.

Highly manipulative and intelligent yet emotionally damaged, she seesaws ambiguously from victim to villain. Shrewdly and sensibly, Lupo reserves any judgment of her actions to the reader and those characters for whom her choices have consequences.

The prose for portions of the novel does become screen-writerly and, in places, resembles stage directions. The dialogue also reflects this deviation with rapid, untethered exchanges that confront and react. As a result, the narrative moves toward the conclusion with a dizzying speed that sometimes requires reining in.

Worthy is an ambitious, interesting, and unorthodox novel that is not afraid to experiment with form and tone. Lupo navigates deceptively esoteric ground through a fresh and creative story that leaves much to ponder.

 

 

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