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Amanda Sthers is a new discovery in the United States for most, but she’s well known in France and most of Europe. Her novels are acclaimed and strong, and her novel Holy Land is a delicious treat and a lesson in interesting techniques.
This is less of a book review and more of an observation of two writing techniques used by Amanda Sthers that are good lessons for all novelists and writers.
First, Holy Lands is written as a series of letters and emails between the main characters of a family now dispersed around the globe and separated by life and its divisions. Sthers uses these letters and emails to convey point of view. She writes a heading on each letter or email to show the reader the POV character and the recipient of the communication. As such, the reader understands the two characters involved in the communication. And, she staggers the responses. In many cases, we know the “communication” is anything but communication. She uses the epistles to deliver insults, compliments, boasts, threats, regrets and more. The casual reader may not fully contemplate the velocity variation between a letter from NY to Paris versus and email, but Sthers uses these differences to create tension. She allows the reader to see single points of communication between siblings or a parent and their adult children. Each of these missives delivers pieces of knowledge so that the reader co-creates the secret views that each character holds separately from all others. This raises the stakes as the brief novel unveils itself.
Second, Amanda Sthers uses narrative distance to let us deep inside her characters. Most letters or emails in Holy Land vary the distance from uncomfortably close to the topics these characters hold in their hearts out to arms length distance the characters hold each other to protect themselves. Sthers plays with narrative and emotional distance. One technique is the various ways these characters sign off their correspondence. How many of us have read the line “With all my respect” knowing the letter writer sends zero respect? What is the difference between signing off a letter “Sincerely” or “Love”? What does it mean to sign off as “Your dad” instead of “Dad”? One character exposes their feelings and hides them completely in written letters but refuses to buy a telephone. This novel allows the reader to follow the characters as they curate what they want to say to each other and make mistakes communicating things they might have meant to keep to themselves.
Amanda Sthers created a great novel in Holy Land, not only for its fantastic premise that you can explore in other reviews but for the talented ways she uses innovative writing techniques. I wonder if this novel started as an exercise in writing a letter from character… and just kept going.