Diary of an Interesting Year - Helen Simpson

Summary

A year in the life of a woman living in post apocalyptic Ireland
She's married to "G." who she doesn't seem to like all that much
They leave after the enactment of billeting, on a pilgrimage to Russia
Why was this story written?
- Perhaps a commentary on the raw human condition: all that's left is sex, miscarriages, and crazy people

The language/voice/presentation:
- I like the short diary entries format. Especially fitting for the world setting, where it feels like short, rushed, diaries every now in then is all one might be able to squeeze out time for.
- And the interesting pacing
  - It's interesting because we have to settle for gaps in the events due to things happening in the story.
  - E.g. the gap between August 31st while they seemed to be doing fine albeit having a bad time food-wise, to September 15th, where a short diary entry lets us know that she's now being held by "Murderer" (aka "M.") #^hjrkhy
  - She doesn't have to explicitly tell us, but we can deduce that on probably September 1st or 2nd they were attacked by M. and G. is now dead and she's been captive for two weeks.
  - This is cool! It's an artifact of the act of story telling also being a part of the story. This introduces limitations like not being able to directly hear characters' thoughts or see action frame by frame. But it also introduces opportunities like the above for information reveal without showing or telling.
Overarching things about plot and meaning and metaphor
- On freedom or lack thereof
  - She starts in a normal world, but locked in a bad marriage. Then her husband dies, but locked with a Murderer. Then finally kills the murderer and is free

- I take that back. I think this intro is really good.

After all, it wouldn’t exactly be taking on a responsibility—I give a new baby three months max in these conditions. Diarrhea, basically.

He's turned everything else inside out (including me). G. didn't have a gun. This one has a gun.

He smells like an abandoned fridge

It didn't seem like there was that much in the way of new ideas about a post apocalyptic world. Climate has gone to shit, people haggle over rations, etc... all the usual things
I feel like she could've done more to distinguish the voice between beginning and end. Seems like a missed opportunity.

~~I can see starting with the comments about Maia's pregnancy.~~
- ~~E.g. with the quote above about it not being a big responsibility to take on the baby~~
- ~~Pros:~~
  - ~~Immediately get us wondering about what's happening without directly revealing~~
  - ~~Much of the first couple months seems a little unnecessary/doable more concisely~~
- ~~Cons:~~
  - ~~I guess the point of how it starts now is that you get sort of a bookending of the year starting normal and ending~~
- I take that back. I think this intro is really good.
  - Doesn't ever directly tell us what's happening (e.g. what the "Big Melt" is, why the hospitals are down, blah blah)
    - Because that's not what this character cares about! (Which we know because G. cares about the why, and protagonist clearly is annoyed that G. cares about the why)
    - In that way, this is both revealing world information and revealing character information.
      - example of:: words are precious. so kill two birds with one sentence
[n] What if...
- You incorporate the diary even more into the story
  - Include sketches?
  - Have some words missing because she used a piece as toilet paper
- Have some magical realism stuff from