What’s in a list?
A vexed mother takes a darkly humorous approach to her forthcoming demise.
Vivian Walker had a horribly traumatic childhood. Her father disappeared when she and her sister were young, leaving them little more than his name, while their mother was unstable and often violent. Their troubled mum also shunned traditional medical practitioners, partly out of a suspicion of doctors and partly because of financial constraints. As a result of this hangover from her unhappy childhood, Vivian is also reluctant to seek medical attention when she is unwell so, by the time a masseuse – Viv’s concession to healthcare – has discovered a skin cancer, it has metastasised and she is given just weeks to live.
Clint’s bio described a man with a good head of hair, happy to have kids and “pretty sure I’m fertile, which makes me cheaper than IVF LOL”.
So, she writes a list.
Her very last list. Vivian has always written lists, and although her last one is largely focused on domestic matters, this one is surely her way of feeling some sense of control during her final days. She intends to clean the fridge, complete her tax, declutter her wardrobe, and erase her undeleted Tinder profile. She also resolves to write a list for her husband and a letter to her son.
Feisty, and always quick with a quip or a pun, Viv conceals the deep wounds of childhood by being prickly. She’s at permanent loggerheads with her sister, and seems to take delight in rubbing people up the wrong way. As for Clinton, her harried husband, he is desperately eager to please, except in her eyes he is forever failing. Every now and then, he is given a chapter of his own to narrate, and it turns out he feels as inadequate as Viv declares him to be.
When they met on Tinder, Clinton’s bio described a man with a good head of hair, happy to have kids and “pretty sure I’m fertile, which makes me cheaper than IVF LOL”. That was all the lure Viv needed, on account of her previous long-term relationship having significantly lowered the boyfriend bar. Now married, and mother to Ethan, all she can see are Clint’s faults.
The three of them navigate her last weeks – and it must be said that, for a woman with advanced cancer who is on heavy pain medication, she has a remarkable amount of energy for sniping and griping while wondering how Clint will manage without her. Every now and then, the reader is offered a glimpse of the couple’s early days, when they were vaguely in love and at least Clint had some hair.
The Very Last List of Vivian Walker, Megan Albany’s debut novel, was apparently inspired by a real-life story and short-listed for Australia’s Banjo Prize in 2020, perhaps because of its quips and wide-ranging reflections on relationships and domestic life.
You can’t blame a woman for feeling vexed, given her past and bleak future. But, in spite of the ostensibly light-hearted tone, you also can’t help thinking how much more tranquil things could be if she spent her last days doing something other than carping. And that someone coming to the end of their life appears to feel most alive when they’re finding fault.
▮ THE VERY LAST LIST OF VIVIAN WALKER, by Megan Albany (Hachette, $34.99)