An unnamed narrator grows up overshadowed by her unconventional mother, an ex-Jehovah’s witness and former television star with an inferiority complex. Her father is the head of a psychiatric institution, whose only form of parenting is to offer his daughter the same life advice he dispenses to his patients. Reserved and somewhat aloof, he chooses not to intervene when his wife obsesses about charisma, calorie counting, and turning their daughter into a child prodigy.
Their daughter strives to meet her mother’s expectations and bond with her father while secretly worrying she lacks the drive or charisma to do anything significant with her life. When her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she begins to address their generational trauma, forge a new relationship with her father, and discover life on her terms. In twelve chapters ― each reflecting a different phase of life ― Posthuma expertly dissects a fraught family history, exposing the absurdity that often lies at the heart of life’s most poignant and challenging moments.
People With No Charisma, Jente Posthuma
The description of PEOPLE WITH NO CHARISMA starts out:
From the International Booker Prize–shortlisted author of What I’d Rather Not Think About comes a darkly humorous novel about multigenerational family dynamics and individuality in Dutch suburbia.
It's worth stating the bleeding obvious here - humour is a very subjective thing and what's hilarious for one reader will simply be dumbfounding for another. Or there will be readers, like this one, who spend a fair amount of time both amused and profoundly confused.
The story is told from the viewpoint of an unnamed narrator, who grows up in the shadow of an unconventional and rather overbearing mother, and a father who is distant, reserved and aloof. On the one hand a former television star, who dies young, from terminal cancer, and the head of a psychiatric institution, who should be eminently qualified to understand childhood damage, but appears utterly incapable of intervention and/or empathy.
Our unnamed protagonist is profoundly damaged by her mother's obsession with the concept of charisma and loss. She delivered that in a lot of fads like dieting and constantly seeking external approval, but really she always overtly and dramatically mourned the death of her career and personal agency from the birth of her daughter, and then the cancer which eventually kills her. Needless to say, her mother's death leaves the narrator with generational trauma to address, as well as trying to find a way to establish a relationship with her father and build a life of her own.
Told in a series of specific chapters reflecting a different phase of life, the sense of humour here is very much on the gallows end of the spectrum, poking fun at the absurdity of life in the face of enormous personal upheaval, leaving the reader either utterly enthralled or vaguely repulsed.
A polarising book, it almost feels like that's a given these days with anyone who makes it onto a Booker list of any kind, there is a dark streak to the humour, and an unflinching attempt at something unsympathetic in many ways, anonymous and disassociating for a reader - connection with the narrator of this story will be hard fought for, and all the more rewarding if you achieve it.