BRAT, by Gabriel Smith
In the wake of his father’s death and his mother’s move to a nursing facility, a 20-something British novelist named Gabriel (not to be confused with the 20-something British novelist Gabriel Smith, whose debut, “Brat,” he inhabits) returns home. Ostensibly, he’s there to prepare his parents’ estate for sale, but he’s also hiding out from a multitude of problems. For starters, despite receiving a sizable advance for his second book, Gabriel hasn’t written a word yet.
Then, during his inebriated explorations of the house, he discovers that its structure is collapsing in some places, molding in others. His girlfriend leaves him. He meets a pair of odd teenagers at a nearby shop, and invites them over for an evening of underage drinking, plus marijuana and Xanax. Mild shenanigans ensue. Meanwhile, there may be someone watching Gabriel; if there is, that person is wearing a deer costume.
If all that wasn’t enough, Gabriel’s skin has also begun coming off, flapping free in vividly rendered body-horror scenes. (This unexplained molting is, according to a running joke, definitely not eczema.) Soon Gabriel begins to nonchalantly pick at the edges of himself: “I just kept pulling, until it had come away from all my fingers and shifting hand veins. The skin came away in a single piece. It didn’t hurt. I looked at it. It looked like a glove of myself.”
Much of the actual text of “Brat” consists of stories-within-the-story, some presented in part, others in full. In his mother’s study, Gabriel finds a novel where a woman with her same name dies in a car accident; in his father’s, there’s a script about friends who gather weekly to watch an old recorded sitcom episode, documenting the changes that appear with each new viewing. Then there are the two stories by Gabriel’s ex-girlfriend, Kei, one of which follows a Russian oligarch whose kink is masturbating on the faces of famous paintings. The other story is about love.
Often these manuscripts mimic or rhyme or foreshadow or recall events from Gabriel’s lived experience. But what do these coincidences mean? No one in “Brat” seems to care that much, and maybe that’s not the story these characters want to tell. Instead of resolving his novel’s many mysteries, Smith explores how this family navigates the disputed borders of its shared memories, pondering what it means to choose one story over another — as well as the consequences of refusing to choose, especially in the wake of grief.
“When someone dies,” says Gabriel’s grandmother, “it becomes a competition to be in charge of the history of that person. People want their memory to be the real one. … But history is the opposite of memory. Each time you remember you rewrite.”
In “Brat,” to tell a story is to shape existence. In Gabriel’s father’s script, two characters conclude that every narrative choice creates a branching reality. One says, “There’s a universe where I kiss you right now. I could choose to live in that universe.” And then he does. Elsewhere, Gabriel’s brother, impatient with his sibling’s flailing grief, tells him, “Don’t make me choose. … Because I will look after my family.” That’s his reality. But isn’t there another reality where the brother chooses Gabriel instead, and in doing so destroys his marriage? Isn’t there a third one where some other choice saves everyone?
The hopeful finale Smith chooses for “Brat” is probably as revealing of his own worldview as it is of his namesake character. Not every narrative thread is resolved as cleanly as Gabriel’s is, or even tied up at all, but that’s OK too. Perhaps those endings can only be found in another novel, or another world.
BRAT | By Gabriel Smith | Penguin Press | 320 pp. | $28
