#BookReview of #Habitat by @catriona_shine| @LilliputPress

[ About Habitat ]

Habitat follows seven neighbours over the course of a surreal and life-changing week as their mid-century apartment building in Oslo begins to inexplicably break down around them.

Connected by familial ties, long acquaintance, simmering feuds and longing glimpses, the residents of the building are bound to one another in more ways than they know. As each inhabitant is touched by strange and sinister phenomena, and their apartment-sized worlds begin to fray at the seams, they struggle to grasp that this is a shared crisis that cannot be borne alone.

The building components give their own take on being used for the purposes of these people, their voices containing the longer perspective of materials that existed before the building, and which will survive in some form beyond its destruction …

[ My Review ]

Habitat by Catriona Shine published March 6th with The Lilliput Press and is described as ‘a remarkable debut novel from one of Ireland’s most promising emerging talents…a startling parable of our uncertain age, as well as a beautiful and inciteful examination of how we deal with seismic events beyond our comprehension and how we can only truly find meaning through shared understanding.’

Habitat is quite unlike ANY novel I have ever read before. Disturbing, yet strangely compelling, it is a novel about an apartment complex and a number of its inhabitants who all experience the most bizarre few days, as the building slowly and inexplicable starts to disintegrate. Catriona Shine is an Irish writer who works as an architect and lives in Oslo. Bringing her own knowledge of building materials and her skill as a writer together, she has created a very unsettling and imaginative tale that really is quite frightening in our current environmental crisis.

The apartment complex consists of two blocks built in the 1950s and would have been considered very much at the forefront of design at the time. Over the years a strong community has developed among the residents, with regular AGMs held to discuss any issues, under the stewardship of the able-handed Eva. The novel begins on a Monday, with the next AGM due to take place the following Friday. Over the course of the next few days, bizarre events happen within, and surrounding, the building but each resident is quite dismissive initially deciding to postpone any discussion on the matter until the Friday meeting.

One of the residents is Sonja, an Irish freelance illustrator who has just taken her first step on the property ladder. Sonja feels a strange breeze within her apartment. On checking the windows and doors, she comes to the conclusion that this cool air is coming through her walls. She requests a survey but first checks with an insurance man, who doesn’t pay too much heed to her concerns. As the week progresses, Sonja makes a rather worrying discovery.

Sonja is only one among many residents who start to experience some strange goings-on in their apartments and soon Eva is inundated with requests and queries. As the latter part of the week approaches, the reader is taken on an extremely disconcerting journey as nature starts to send a very strong message.

Habitat is a novel driven out of concern for our planet and the damage and destruction we impose upon it daily. As an architect, Catriona Shine is all too aware of the necessity to change our building habits with the materials we use and how we interact with nature. With the intermittent perspective of the building and its various components and materials, Catriona Shine provides a frightening insight, at a local level, of what is really happening on a global level, except in Habitat, nature fights back in a sense.

Habitat is an extremely original tale and, in the same vein at Rónán Hession’s latest release, Ghost Mountain, it is a fable-like story evoking introspective thoughts, deliberately shocking the reader into looking at themselves and how they interact with the world outside their own front door. Habitat is a penetrating and striking novel, intelligent and convincing in its message, a very relevant debut that will resonate with many readers.

‘There are deep troughs in coastal woods where our skeletal grains once lay … We were poured into moulds, and we set, gripping rods of steel … We cling, but it is you who fear, who must be kept apart from members of your species who are not your family. We rest our edges on walls of bricks, transferring our load, the load of you and your possessions. You have no plan for us after this. Your thoughts will crumble with us.‘
– Habitat

[ Bio ]

Catriona Shine grew up in Ireland and now works as an architect in Oslo. She is a recipient of an Arts Council Literature Bursary Award 2023 and her writing has appeared in The Dublin Review, Channel, Southword and elsewhere.

She was awarded the Penfro First Chapter Prize in 2016 and IAFOR Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award in 2017. She was shortlisted for the Seán O’Faoláin Short Story Prize 2022 Seán O’Faoláin Short Story Prize and the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2023 among others. 

Habitat was longlisted for the McKitterick Prize 2022.

X ~ @catriona_shine