Why We Are Here

by Briohny Doyle

I have read a lot of good books this year, but i think this is my book of the year. It touched the soul.
BEN HUNTER, TELL ME WHAT TO READ - AUSTRALIA'S BIGGEST BOOK CLUB

When life knocks you down, have faith in Dog.

After her partner and father die in quick succession, BB moves to a glamorous, condemned beachside apartment at the edge of a glittering city so memory-saturated it might be a mirage. Her plan? To rediscover the person she was before finding, and losing, the love of her life. To heal she’ll party like it’s 1999, walk her motley dog, Baby, and surrender to the simple joys of life alone by the sea.

When a neighbour mistakes her for a dog trainer, and enlists her in correcting the murderous tendencies of his Doberman, BB feels close to a meaningful new life. Harnessing the tenets of Cesar Millan the dog whisperer, and other less canine-centric canons, she helps local dogs and their wealthy, oblivious owners to distinguish between the things they can and cannot change. She even takes tentative steps towards new intimacies—with safely unavailable Franz, and sultry, free-spirited Vera.

But life in Balboa Bay is increasingly surreal. Baby is sending telepathic messages. A nearby prison quotes philosophers over the intercom. The other dog trainers think BB is scab labour. And somewhere on her street there's a dog that sounds like the wind.

Cinematic, heart-breaking, often hilarious, Why We Are Here is a singular love story for strange days. Doyle's witty prose revels in the solace of the natural world, in conversing with writers who have lost and endured, and above all in the profound connection between a woman and her dog.

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Grief

247 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 27, 2023

About the author

Briohny Doyle is a Melbourne-based writer and academic. Her work has appeared in publications like The Lifted Brow, The Age, Overland, Going Down Swinging and Meanjin, among others, and she has performed her work at the Sydney Festival and at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Reviews

[Sheree | Keeping Up With The Penguins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why We Are Here is one of those literary novels that goes nowhere specific, but fills the story out with achingly introspective narrative. It’s almost stream-of-consciousness at times, and filled with quotes and extracts from writers and filmmakers and philosophers and dog trainers. There’s also no punctuation marks for speech. It’s very Joan Didion meets Maggie Nelson.

My full review of Why We Are Here is up now on Keeping Up With The Penguins.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the first few pages this novel was working it's way to becoming a favourite read of 2023. It's a witty take on grieving and coping with the covid pandemic. Past halfway and I think I was a bit overwhelmed by a constant snappy flow, almost a stream of consciousness, and my mind strayed while reading it.
I can't decide if it would be better to read it in one sitting or have a bit more time to dwell on all it brings up. Perhaps I should get it out from the library again sometime in the future. After all, it does have very good dog content.

[Rachel]

Brilliant and tender, Why We Are Here is a riveting study in grief, waywardness, and renewal. By turns raw, funny, intellectual, and searching, here is a book that mines the depths of human suffering and lights the way forward with the gems it finds. This is the big-hearted, soul-searching novel I’ve been waiting for.

[Kate Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured it - very Maggie Nelson but with more laughs.
I detect Eileen Myles and Sigrid Nunez too - Myles for that juxtaposition of place/displacement and the grounding effect of a dog, and Nunez for the dislocation of grief and also how act like you know what the heck you’re doing with someone else’s dog.

Doyle covers so much here: the aftermath of losing a parent and a partner. BB’s remaining meaningful relationship is with Baby, her dog. They fuse, not simply homophonically, but via telepathy. I never doubted Baby’s physicality but Doyle is having fun with the boundaries of real/surreal. And boundaries are a thing. From the fence that keeps the golfers safe from an enraged Doberman, to the lockdown restrictions on movement, to the poaching of dog-owning customers from bona fide dog-trainers to the demarcation of those houses destined for demolition, Doyle asks us to question the right to and wisdom in transgression.

Precariousness is at the heart of this novel. BB teeters emotionally, her beloved flat is due to be knocked down at some point, her lecturing job is without tenure, her love interests are without commitment so what holds her together?
Is it just Baby?

[Emma Leitner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly this type of narrative wasn’t for me. It was such a mishmash of random thoughts with no sense of a timeline, no plot, no character development. I almost gave up half way through because I was honestly bored.

Also (as has been pointed out by others as well), I picked up this book due to the synopsis’ emphasis on dogs and the connection the protagonist apparently has with them. Other than some walks and some weird shit at the end, this just did not happen. Possibly the most disappointing thing about this book.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t finish it. I was attracted to the story about dogs but they barely feature and, to be honest, I am so over reading middle class white writers’ stories about their lives - even if it involves (gasp) death and grief, which I’d appreciate some I sight into, but this is another of those precious narcissistic wishy washy books for book club. Ugh. Bad buy.

[Lil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book forced me to break down my walls and be present. Every sentence was full. Beautiful writing, however, poor structure, making it very labourious to read. A generous book on grief, belonging and dog

[Dani Ringrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's not many novels that I read that I feel both at a loss of words, and want to press into the hands of everyone I know. This novel almost literally fell into my lap by a chance free ticket to see Doyle's book launch in Brisbane, and in my 2023 Year of Seeing Signs Everywhere, I felt like every word in this was written for me somehow. When the universe gives me signs like this, it felt strangely comforting to have a novel where a dog telegraph messages to their owner, and the local jail quotes philosophy to the narrator.

This novel is both claustrophobic and a warm hug, a fever dream and a swim in the ocean. It's highly philosophical, as well as highly personal, and I did try stepping back at a few points to consider how much was auto and how much was fiction, in the new world of autofiction. The narrator is one who is hurting so much from the world, but craves understanding of it and its beauty. And in this novel, all that beauty in pain is revealed - and it is a gorgeous palette.

A weird coincidence that I read two novels in a row both with Sydney's ocean pools as a featured setting, but all I crave at the moment is a dip in one of them.

Contains one of the best stand-alone monologues in modern literature, from Baby. I couldn't breathe while I was reading it.

"People want to read fiction about the past that says something about the present, she continues. They want to look back with a sense of revelation. History as it is happening is too chaotic. There's no clear narrative arc."

"Lots of things would be more fun to watch if beautiful women did them carelessly: a glib observation of the basic principles of advertising."

"My favourite is the nankeen kestrel - a little brown raptor- who surfs the wind by the northern cliff edge. A brown body hanging on a headwind. Is leaning into an opposing force the only way to be both still and airborne?"

[Jasmin | jasf4iry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book follows our main character BB after losing two loved ones in quick succession. We follow her journey as she rediscovers the person she was before grieving the loss of her partner & father. To heal she moves closer to the sea with her dog and surrenders herself to the simple joys of life by the ocean.

This novel is evocative. It’s literary fiction at its finest. It is a work of fiction yet it felt so REAL. I had to remind myself that this isn’t a memoir. Briohny Doyle perfected the art of writing such a realistic character. I loved being inside BB’s thoughts. I loved what she (Briohny Doyle) had to say. I also appreciated the quotes from IRL people, in particular other writers.

I particularly like the quote Briohny Doyle used to back up her statement that grief exists at extremes. “Mourning contracts the eye like a camera lens in strong light; the aperture of the souls shrinks to a tiny pinpoint which admits only grief,” writes Mark Doty. This quote is a great example of how the novel portrays grief & how the main character views it (her own grief).

HOWEVER - I wish the novel delved deeper into the life of our main character. This book is not plot driven, but character driven, yet I was left wanting more information about BB’s situation and the aftermath of her forever changed life. The ending both left me satisfied and unsatisfied.

I definitely recommend reading this book!

[Jaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grief sits lightly and heavily on these pages. It’s always there but the tonal levity and humour (and all the great dog content) lets it permeate without sinking. I felt the spirit of Deborah Levy in this book of interiority and almost no plot – lovely. Lockdown and golf courses are inextricably linked for me (I will fight for access to Northcote Golf Course forever) and this book spoke to that in ways that felt it was written just for me. Doyle is a writer’s writer and some of the quotes from other writers interrupted the book for me. This is the fourth Australian novel I have read published this year (and it’s only July) with a writer-who’s-not-doing-much-writing protagonist. Writers writing writers is a bit of a thing for me. I’ve read more than 100 novels this year and can think of no two protagonists who share a profession except for writers. Autofiction goes some way to explain this of course. Anyway it’s an observation and something I see that I need to ponder further. If a dear dog has ever saved your very essence, your soul, then you should read this book.

[Bronte Winnem · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book so badly. Doyle is not a bad writer, there are some poignant and beautifully written observations of life and loss and the companionship of a dog. Equally, it is one of the first novels I've read that tactfully included references to and an acknowledgment of the pandemic/COVID-19/lockdowns in Australia without it being too contrived. But this book seriously lacked structure (it didn't even possess chapters) and a coherent throughline or plot that made it so, so difficult to read. The repetition of the word 'telegraphed' between Baby and BB was frustrating to read over and over. The same lamentations of BB on her past live in Silver City became boring. The story just went no where. Doyle was trying too hard to use death to make profound comment on the purpose of life in the face of loss and fell just as hard and short.

[Gabriella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciate a dog who hates golf.

[Maddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Concept was alright but the pandemic setting was not palatable. Wish I’d DNF’d

[Lee Kofman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Briohny Doyle is a beautiful writer and I’m glad I got to review Why We Are Here on ABC's Bookshelf, having loved another of her books, Adult Fantasy.
This is an autofiction work with no strong plot, but I couldn't care less bout that, because instead this book offers so much insight into grief and the contemporary world generally. The book traces BB’s gradual, gentle return to life after a lengthy grief-and-lockdown-induced hibernation by the sea. At the core of this book, I think, is the title’s fundamental question. Why are we here, Doyle seems to be asking throughout the novel, if life is full of loss and sickness and aggressive golfers? She asks and she also gives many answers that to me are fairly convincing. We are here to swim, to have sex, to make bad decisions then do better, to walk our dogs and to love people close to us, even when they are irritatingly shallow but also sad neighbours. We are here even though once you lost someone you truly loved, grief will never pack up and go away for good.
I loved Doyle's witty, lyrical and reflective voice, and also how she stretches the genre of the novel. There are essayistic bits in it with quotations from various cultural theorists as well as from literary works, like C.S. Lewis’s memoir of bereavement, Grief Observed. In her approach to fiction Doyle reminds me of Carl Ove Knausgaard’s so-called novels in the series of My Struggle which are really memoirs. And I'm a huge fan of Knausgaard. And now a fan of Doyle too.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn’t too bad. It is very well written and it explores grief really sensitively. There seemed to be a bit of sameness about it, which meant there were times when I just wasn’t motivated to read it.

I think setting it in a Covid lockdown may have had something to do with it. But I just needed a bit more from the story.

I did enjoy the setting of the story. It put me in mind of that stretch of the eastern beaches from Little Bay up to Maroubra. So I could really picture the setting. I just needed a bit more from it plot-wise.

[Esther van Praag · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. It’s meandering and I’m not really sure what the point is other than to watch BB work through her grief. The essence of this book is this quote: “I send several extended voice messages that all say the same thing: I’m sad. Grief is never-ending. I miss Him. I want my life to begin again but also I’m not ready and, furthermore, what life? What is there to return to? Why am I here, or anywhere, for that matter?”

I liked the dog moments. Lots of scenes just hanging out and walking the dog, talking about dog psychology and behaviour. I don’t think I’ve read a monologue from a dog’s perspective before. I liked it! Various insights into dog ownership. “I meet the dog owners of Balboa Bay. Not the tough men with pit bulls or the sun-dried women with teacup mongrels, but the affluent, active dog owners who golf and surf and have garages full of sports equipment and nearly organised hardware. They love their dogs but have clear ideas about what dogs should be, how dogs should feel about being “their” dogs. The dogs don’t know their good fortune, is the problem. I try to listen to what the dogs do know. They are itchy. They don’t want to sleep in the laundry. They want to play. Or they don’t. They hate the grandchild who is obsessed with their ears. They have tiny eyes that were not designed for seeing, and squished-up snouts that were not designed for sniffing. They are frustrated and don’t know why but humping the ottoman helps.”

Interesting photos scattered between chapters. A park bench, a silluette shadow of a person in a minimalist home, the ocean, a gold course. Almost gives the feeling of an indulgent memoir. I wonder if the writer lost a partner and/or parent figure like the main character. If not, then I am very impressed with her exploration of grief. It felt like the author was writing this to process their own experience. Some books are written to entertain the reader, some books are written to self indulge the writer or for the writers own processing of their thoughts, with the crafted novel as a result. This book often felt like the latter.

Lots of recognizable Australian quirks or things that I don’t often see referenced in literature. Milo. Urban Dictionary definitions. Magic 8 balls. An online video yoga teacher with a sheep dog (that’s got to be Yoga with Adrienne right?) Saying ciggies instead of cigarettes.

It’s sad, depressing. Our character is mourning, and then there’s also Covid and lockdowns. The online dj party, and feeling sad. Running away and hiding at school camp and feeling sorry for myself at how no one has noticed my absence. I feel like in melodramatic moments of my life, I have felt these exact same feelings (for no describable reason, I have undergone zero hardship so I couldn’t tell you why I have felt that way ha).

The writing style at first was jarring for me. It took an extra level of concentration for me to work out if someone is saying something, thinking something, or neither, when quotations marks aren’t used. But I did get used to it and could read it more flowingly towards the end.

Other relatables. Or just excerpts that for whatever reason caught my eye.

“I don’t like gardening. Or I didn’t before. Gardening is work that produces more work. Work you can’t turn away from without losing the benefits. But the garden of my condemned apartment is so sad. It yearns for tending. Years of evident care push back against an aggressive pre-rental clean-up. Hacked lawn. Creeping vines hit with poison, and left to dry up on the fence, push out little green leaves. Brutally pruned rose bushes bud defiantly. I pull at weeds and uncover pavers that once remarked fertile plots of soil. A garden is a place in which to plan a future but this one blooms an avowal to the past.”

“The students didn’t understand that completing their tasks by cheating was failing a priori. They didn’t value process, saw only outcome, because that’s what their education and understanding of the world had taught them to value. What they especially couldn’t bear, I saw it in their tearful eyes, was having their failure witnessed and verified, which made this grid of squares particularly cruel and painful. What they do not yet know is that private failure, unspeakable failure, is far worse. Better get failure out there. Frame it as struggle.”

“‘Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember,’ writes Joan Didion after the deaths of her husband and daughter.”

“For most of my life I have cried in MasterCard advertisements and clips from Oprah. I have cried in anticipation of the last paragraph of a novel. I have cried in hearing certain minor chord progressions or when the music gets dramatic in a film, even before anything sad actually happens. Pre-moved, He’d say, and rub my shoulders.”

“Some of us turn on the hand-clap emoji. Some of us are wearing pajama pants under our desks. Some of us do not even have our cameras on; are just little yellow hands clapping in the darkness, or are not here at all.”

“Umberto Eco believed that there were two kinds of novels - those about the whole world, and those about almost nothing, my friend says.”

“My parents were both liners who reliably whispered, leave me be, when I pestered them for company, attention, entertainment. For years I thought they were saying, leave me, B. A personal directive. When I finally understood, I realised it was ‘leave me be’ because, to them, being was a solitary condition painfully interrupted by the demands of others. Hell was other people even if you loved them, even if you’d made them yourself from scratch. Soon I learned to feel this too. Underscored it. A closing instruction on the faint blue lines in my mind: leave me. B.“

“He was granted the dignity of an acceptable death at an acceptable age, and here I am troubling it, not letting it rest.”

[Averil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of the trickier ones to review. Described as auto-fiction, it's narrated by a woman who is grieving the deaths of both her father and partner, amidst the chaos of covid lockdowns.
It doesn't particularly have a plot, but it doesn't *not* have a plot. What it does have is an extremely intimate view into the many shades of grief. At times amusing, at other times heart-wrenchingly sad, what the reader is left with is their own grief for the narrator's grief. And being auto-fiction, we know that the narrator is mainly Doyle herself.
I cannot imagine how hard it must have been to not only sit with her grief as a human, but then to sit with it as a writer as well, trying to articulate what must be, in many ways, beyond articulation. And yet, she succeeds. She lets us in.
Another key facet of the book is the narrator's bond with her dog Baby, and the care she takes with her neighbours' dogs. While one review I read was highly critical of the level of dog fanaticism in the book, I took it as a fundamental part of her healing. That animal–human relationship, however it is portrayed in this book, is widely known as restorative in difficult times for many people.

Doyle's last novel, Echolalia, was a near-future dystopia – an Australia in a major climate crisis and a woman in a major personal crisis – but in some ways this new book is more unnerving, scarier, for the very fact that the events it portrays could currently happen to any of us. There's nowhere to hide from the world it portrays, no relief that that 'it would never happen'. It's immensely powerful and sad.

[Scarlet Murdoch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why We Are Here is a beautifully written novel about grief, coping, and survival. The heartfelt and raw prose encapsulates grief sincerely, making you care deeply for the protagonist. Doyle draws on other literature and films which is a nice addition. She also demonstrates the strong connections that are possible between dogs and humans, and how helpful they can be when one is suffering. The only downfall for me is that it is set in lockdown, and COVID and restrictions are such prominent themes throughout the whole text. This may not be an issue for some people, but I am not sure if I am quite ready, or ever will be, to read fiction set during a lockdown. Doyle's exploration of grief and the aftermath of losing a loved one is excellently demonstrated in her writing.

[Becc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely book. Perfect treatment for the subject matter, which is all you can ask for surely. Lots of 'show don't tell' which is fine by me. Grief is a lot of not yet putting it together; it rang very true here and resonated as such. Also great to see something written through/about this period of history; we are all in such a rush to move on even though we probably need reads like this. Laughed, cried, etc... I will read again I suspect. Thanks for writing something that resonated where not much else has done for a bit. Struggled towards the end (along with author) to imagine a satisfying finish but what an ending. A lotto win would've been a crappy alternative for sure. :) Keen to check out her other work.

[Trisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grabbed instantly by the balance between the brevity and beauty of the writing, I was captivated by this author’s ability to entrance. So intense was the experience that immediately upon finishing, I restarted the audio so I could hear it all again.

Repetition, the use of strings of words that were almost list-like, wit, grit, pop culture references, literary and music references, and the internal machinations of a girl set deep in grief, all merged to give us a truly memorable story that did not shy away from the most difficult aspects of our modern lives.

I am now obsessed with the art that is Briohny Doyle’s writing, and can’t wait to read more.

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Briohny Doyle’s Why We Are Here is a masterful meditation on grief, loss and how dogs can help us to heal. magical. Her lyrical, evocative prose uses sensory imagery masterfully to bring BB’s insular Covid era world to life. The novelist explores BB’s grief at the loss of her partner while meditating on the impact of gentrification on diverse communities (Australian readers may recognise the setting as La Perouse/Malabar). Doyle has composed a most poignant and temporal novel, wondrous and strange, shimmering with loss, resilience, and the power of magical thinking.

[Kathryn Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard Briohny Doyle talking about the book on a podcast, which made me seek it out. Why We Are Here is a chaotic read. It felt like BB was hurtling towards oblivion with thoughts and memories crashing against each other, like a fever dream. The radical detachment and loneliness of grief and isolation were heartbreaking. I read the book in one sitting because it felt like BB and Baby needed someone by their side.
A story of unravelling, and the mundaneness of life. And surviving it.

[D'face · Rating 3 out of 5]

A writer grieving the loss of her partner and her father is stuck in a condemned house on Sydney’s north shore during the COVID lockdown, she demonstrates that it is possible to write a novel without plot. Each day she walks her dog and if possible visits the dogs of others until the actually qualified dog walkers and trainers catch her. I picked it up because of the emphasis on dogs, but it is equally about loss, emptiness, sex.

[Nora Nora · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF @ 50%
I’m DNFing a lot of books recently, I just don’t want to waste my time.
This book started with dogs, so I was like yeah love it, then it started meandering, and that’s not something I enjoy.

[Amanda Mergler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of this novel I really liked, and it started very strong. Unfortunately for me it then went into a lot of navel gazing and arty thinking that seemed to stop the story moving forward. I found the novel too reflective for my tastes. Some moments were beautifully written and very moving.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about grief - non-fiction but poetically written in a cyclical style, with motifs returning repeatedly for emphasis. The relationship between the author and her dog was the highlight - the way they communicate with each other is beautiful.

[Suz Bennett]

Managed to finish this one. Not quite as distressing as Echolalia but very deep.
Basically about how to go on and live after death of loved one. Why we are here - when loved ones are not.
Covid lock downs very true to experience and double whammy when also dealing with death.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

So beautiful and touching. I underlined so many perfect sentences in this book. It will stay with me for a long time.

[Jaimie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful

[Lisa Ikin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book. It made me laugh and cry and I really enjoyed the observations, the intense emotions and the absurdities. An author to watch out for.