‘A New New Me’ overview: 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 instantaneous espresso granules, repeating Snoop Dogg’s daily affirmations, which she’s translated into Czech, and making an attempt on outfits.

After her appointment to select up her passport — throughout which she has an odd encounter with a girl named Milica who insists on turning 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 Fidelity 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 examine their personalised information alerts: Eva receives updates in regards to the winner of three gold medals on the European rabbit jumping championships whereas Kinga’s cellphone tells her in regards to the Luxury Enamel Posse, a gaggle that invades individuals’s houses and folds residents right into a suitcase together with unfastened enamel and clean checks.

So a lot whimsy barely 20 pages right into a e-book might be overwhelming, however Oyeyemi is such a assured author, her particulars at all times particular and alive, that you’re in good fingers even should you’re not fully certain what materials these fingers are made from, the place they’re taking you, or how a lot they’ll jiggle and jostle you alongside the best way.

After the primary chapter, we by no means meet that specific Kinga who opens the e-book once more. This is as a result of there are seven — or doubtlessly eight, relying on the way you rely — Kingas inhabiting a single thoughts and physique: Kinga-Alojzia is answerable for Mondays, Kinga-Blažena of Tuesdays, Kinga-Casimira of Wednesdays and so forth till Kinga-Genovéva, whose realm is Sunday, earlier than the cycle begins once more.

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 thought how or why or who put him there. He does look considerably acquainted to her — and to among the different Kingas as effectively — however she will’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 taking part in an element in that. Is he related to the Luxury 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.

But how dependable are they? Kinga-A offers an outline 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 could 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 once 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 identity disorder (or DID, beforehand often known as a number of character dysfunction), a critical psychological sickness that begins in childhood and is linked to severe trauma. It’s additionally a dysfunction that has gained a lot of attention in recent years because of social media making individuals who dwell with it extra seen.

Yet Oyeyemi’s novel doesn’t take care of her trauma. Similarly, the Kingas aren’t within the means of “integrating” right into a single unified self (a common — though 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 felony 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 principally lived along 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 somewhat 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? Where do they arrive from? How and why will we inform them? Communicating with different individuals is a continuing act of storytelling, in spite of everything: We share anecdotes, we narrate our joys and fears and troubles to 1 one other, we agree on the shared story of our actuality (or we don’t), we curate our actuality in a different way relying on who we share it with. It follows, then, that speaking with the self, or elements of ourselves, is simply as a lot about understanding, decoding and framing our personal experiences by way of narrative.

There’s so much taking place within the background of “A New New Me,” whose essential plotline swirls up and round unpredictably like self-serve fro-yo. The most distinguished and evocative of those background shadow performs is the connection between Kinga and her brother, Benek, who we by no means really meet, however whose life’s trajectory and profession have been made doable by Kinga’s childhood sacrifices. It’s becoming and someway ominous that Benek is an actor — he will get to attempt on different characters for a dwelling and but can at all times return to himself, whereas Kinga really lives as a collection of recurring however separate “characters,” which is to say, her totally different selves. I’m not fully certain what to make of this thriller brother haunting the novel, nevertheless it’s intriguing.

In addition to getting weirder, Oyeyemi’s novels have been getting funnier over time, and her new-newest follows that pattern. Its humor exhibits up within the quirks of the Kingas’ personalities (“I’ll just lounge around sending gourmet tourists spiraling by creating Tripadvisor listings and rave reviews for restaurants that don’t exist.”), of their jobs (considered one of them is a perfumer’s muse; one other creates vacationer experiences involving manufacturing a disaster and having the shopper save the day) or just within the whimsical nature of the world they inhabit (see Luxury Enamel Posse above). “A New New Me” is totally gratifying and may be very prone to reward repeat readings.

I’m off to begin it over once more myself.

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