Sunbathing

by Isobel Beech

Summertime in Italy, fresh vegetables from the garden, taking turns washing dishes, reading to each other, learning about cherry worms. Strange how badly I could punish myself for abandoning you once, then go and do it again.

After weeks of grieving, a woman books a plane ticket bound for an old villa in the mountains of Abruzzo. Invited to stay with her friends Giulia and Fab - in the weeks before they marry in a village orchard - she lives for a summer in the house's Birthing Room, where generations of women once had their babies.

More often, though, she lives in her head: in the past, trying to make sense of her grief and wondering how to go on, or if she can.

As her inner and outer worlds spar and converge, she passes the time helping with the household chores, walking in the sunshine and plucking fruit from the nearby orchards, all while dwelling on the moments with her father that might have warned her something was wrong.

This spare, stunning novel explores the workings of the self in the wake of devastation and deep regret, and reveals the infinite ways that the everyday offers solace and hope.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Summer, Contemporary, Grief, Mental Health, Italy

295 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2022

Reviews

[Suz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author wrote this while processing her own personal experience with grief. I found this article while looking into her story:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

No words are wasted on these pages, and although the subject matter is dark, I found it to still be a special book. Given the author's lived experience, I was taken to a part of her psyche that was real. Written by an unnamed daughter to her unnamed father, this woman experiences her grief and loss in a confusing way. She has tried counseling, but does not go back. I liked her experience at a support group for children of parents of suicide, I found the interactions there to be interesting, sensitive and thought-provoking. I did not know the term committed suicide is no longer used, and understand why.

Other serious themes such as those relating to the me too movement were addressed, and the use of social media. I found this a little confusing.

I enjoyed the description of her Italian soujourn with her childhood friend where she convalesces and potters around with the couple who are soon to be married. These two didn't work it seemed, and drug taking was the norm; but who am I to judge, this was not important.

The woman slowly began to process her grief toward the end, and I was left satisfied with the story, but a heartwarming read it is not. She looks inward, learning about herself and her beloved father, coming closer to acceptance, although still unmoored one is left with hope for her.

A warning that those sensitive to the issue of suicide may not like to read this book, but I found it to be a solid read, rated between three to four stars, round up. I think this author has an important story to tell and produced a very solid debut.

My thanks to Allen & Unwin for a physical copy to read and review, which I read in tandem with the audio version. Narrator Claire Lovering was an excellent voice to listen to, very well done indeed. And of course to the author, who has gone through her path of recovery while using the written word.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can pin point the exact moment, almost to the sentence, where I fell in love with this novel. Sunbathing is addressed to the father of our protagonist who has recently died by suicide. Like all books about death, regret and grief it’s really about life and how we go on in the face of overwhelming loss, grief, pain and loneliness. It made me think of the Buddhist analogy that we are all riding a sleeping tiger and life gets clarified in the moments the tiger awakens and roars at us and reminds us that we are riding a damn tiger. I may be misremembering the analogy but I think about it all the time. As does Beech I suspect. The aspects of this debut novel I loved most were everything it did with and said about our phones and the internet, one particular conversational set piece about feminism, and its Abruzzo (and Melbourne) setting. So often I don’t recognise the Italy depicted in English language fiction but here the depiction of languid but productive Italian rural life and community rang true and I could see, smell, hear and feel everything about the house and village and its people and cats. Gently showing how a friendship can restore your very essence was beautiful. The birthing room metaphor felt a little on the nose at first until I remembered that my Zia proudly told me on my first trip to Italy that I would be sleeping in the bed where by bisnonna had died. We are always closer to death and even to life than we care to think about. Beech’s prose is beautiful and this debut is one to look forward to (out in May).

[Colin Baldwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
Given I had won this in a giveaway, and the blurb grabbed me, my hopes were set high and I always like to support first-time writers.
This one certainly offered some good moments and prose but, for me, that could not be sustained for the entire read.

[Kylie H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am feeling quite conflicted with this book, there were parts I loved (the stay in Italy) and parts that I really didn't like (casual use of cocaine, social influencers, instagram references),
This is a very contemporary book which has a young woman going on something of a voyage of self discovery after her father commits suicide (this is not very clear for quite some time reading the book). While at home in Melbourne grieving and isolating herself, she receives an invite from her friend Giulia to visit her in rural Italy and help prepare for her upcoming wedding.
The Italian setting, and description of day to day life was wonderful. It had me almost considering doing something similar. However, other sections of the book were recollections of depressing conversations, observations on social influencers and things that as a middle aged woman I could not relate to at all.
I don't think I am the correct demographic for this book and I am sure that many readers will absolutely love it, others like me perhaps not so much.
Thank you Allen and Unwin for the paperback ARC that I won.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5★s
Sunbathing is the first novel by Australian author, Isobel Beech. An unnamed daughter, numb with grief after the death of her father, travels from Melbourne to the small rural Italian town of Altino in the Abruzzo, to spend summer weeks with her close friends, Giulia and Fabrizio, soon to be married.

Once there, she occupies her time with everyday chores and activities, finding pleasure in: gardening, cooking, cleaning, washing and sharing meals with her friends. Giulia’s friendship, her quiet support and her steady, undemanding company provide a refuge from her turbulent thoughts and emotions of her grief.

Eventually, she begins to sort herself out mentally, realising she is punishing herself for past words and deeds. She dissects her relationship with her father, and her reaction to what occurred. Can she return home somewhat restored?

She slowly progresses through some stages of grief: her anger “was muddled, always, with guilt and shame and despair and doubt.” From her reading about other suicides, she sees “the way it rippled outwards and all around so that other people, hundreds of them, became caught in the tide, to then carry that anger and sadness around out of loyalty and repentance.”

The story is told in a first-person narrative addressed to the woman’s unnamed father, with chapters alternating between present day and flashbacks. It must take a special effort to write a whole novel without ever naming the protagonist or significant others; it also requires effort to read, to untangle occasional ambiguities, and as a literary device it is somewhat irritating.

While Beech’s descriptive prose is often evocative, the reader may need to be in the right frame of mind, or the right demographic, to find this novel captivating. Male suicide plays a significant part in the story, and the discussion about that in relation to #metoo is powerful and topical. Perceptive and heartfelt, a thought-provoking read.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Allen & Unwin.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contains some beautiful and painful writing, but this is essentially an essay on grief inexplicably and jarringly punctuated with chapters about social media, immigration, and #metoo.

[ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

the vibes of this book? EXCELLENT. it kinda changed smth deep within me idk i didn't know it had until i've finished reading and even now i feel like my amygdala and frontal lobe are overreacting and sensitive to stimuli help me

edit: I KNOW NOW. it felt like i was in a liminal space the entire time

[Kaven Hirning · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book in one sitting.
I laughed and sobbed.
I was in Italy, and I was also in the void.

I am so happy I started off June with this.

[Rosa Opie · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing amazing amazing. sunbathing made me feel hollow and full at the same time and made by heart ache with sadness and love and want. it was one of those books that reminded me that my place in the world is only a tiny snapshot in the grand scheme of things and that made me appreciate what I have even more but also excited for the new people and places i will eventually meet. it was lyrical and beautiful, so sensitively written and confronted necessary topics including complicated grief and guilt, hope and healing, mental health, and performative activism. isobel beech, you have a wonderful mind and please please please write more.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. Though I have never lost anyone in the way the book describes, the depictions of a particular sort of grief brought me to tears more than once. The writing is like butter. Highly recommend, however big TW.

[Catelyn Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book really had me thinking about moving to a rural Italian town

[Mon · Rating 1 out of 5]

From the blurb I thought this book was written for me because
a) set in Italy
b) deals with the grief of losing a father

This did nothing for me. The author needed to pick a lane and stay in it. Don’t bring up TikTok and influencers and Australian immigration in a novel that should be about grief. It’s less than 300 pages long, you don’t need these side quests.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

a lovely and profound easy to read holiday book about struggling with grief while continuing to live your life in the beautiful Italian countryside. makes me want to grow all my own veggies and bask in sunshine every day for the rest of my life.

[Sabine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to live with joy and purpose

[Jaimie forsyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this in ur luteal phase and risk flooding ur house with tears

[Isabella · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

I loved this book. Though I personally have never experienced a loss in the way the book describes, the depictions of her grief brought me to tears on more than one occasion. That being said, whilst I cried at some points, there were chapters that a smile was pasted on my face the whole time. I loved the friendship between the main character and Guilea (and the description of their friendship as a warm bed), as well as the descriptions of rural italy (it makes me want to travel to Europe so bad).

The book being in first person was a literary choice I personally liked. It felt intimate, like I was reading letters addressed to the unnamed Father or deeply personal journal entries. Despite this however, it did take some time to get used to (for example, it took wayyy longer than it should have for me to figure out the person that passed was their Father and just trying to untangle other scenes, particularly at the start).

I think that whilst the ending felt a little bit uncomfortable and sudden (It didn't feel like an ending?), it seemed fitting in relation to the process of grief.

The book touches on elements of the #metoo wave and feminism, which whilst I did appreciate (particularly chapter 23), I felt at times that it was a bit disconnected from the main themes.

I would say that this book wouldn't be for everyone (trigger warnings) and I believe that it is also for a certain demographic. That being said I personally loved and will cherish this book and I'm glad that the book was brought to me by the book club :)

[will e · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book. She has a special, simple way of writing but in a way that really hits you. Felt the Italian summer. Felt the loss. Felt the confusion. Felt the pain. Teared up. Didn’t want to put it down.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Isobel Beech has produced a wonderfully quiet meditation on grief in her debut novel,  Sunbathing .

After weeks of grieving, the unnamed woman at the centre of the story books a flight to Italy, to stay with her friends Giulia and Fab, in the lead-up to their wedding. The couple live in the mountains of Abruzzo, in an old villa with a large garden, and the woman’s days fall into a rhythm of tending the vegetable patch, walking to the nearby village, and reflecting on who and what she had lost in Melbourne.

In modern Western societies, mourning largely lacks ritual, leaving the bereaved feeling unmoored. Beech captures this in her main character, who quickly finds that her previous understanding of mourning and grief does not fit her lived experience -

I wondered if only family members and ex-wives were sent flowers, and why that was. I wondered, too, why flowers at all? Why not huge bottles of vodka or books on how not to die of grief, and why not vouchers for resorts or beach shack rentals, so that a person feeling like this could just go away and be alone for as long as possible?

Initially, it is unclear who has died, however, the woman’s rumination on events before the death soon reveal that it was her father, by suicide. Importantly, Beech keeps the distressing circumstances of the death to internal monologue, creating jarring transitions between the woman’s grief and her languid, sun-drenched days in the Italian countryside. Of death, the woman thinks  -

…I was realising, I’d never felt it fully. Not if real loss picked you up and held you by the feet and shook you, so that everything you knew came falling out of your head like spare change. Not if real loss reached into your favourite places (home, bed, car) and stripped them of all warmth and normality. Not if real loss meant that even the most innocuous comments from strangers or loved ones could reduce you to a pile of dust, somehow both incensed and demolished.

Beech captures the anger associated with grief, and this is particularly relevant in the context of suicide, where emotions are frequently complicated by feelings of confusion, guilt and shame.

Someone who suspected approached me at the funeral. ‘I hope you don’t feel responsible,’ they said, squeezing my shoulder. What a painfully useless thing to hope. That was just about the only thing I felt.

The Italian countryside gets a special mention - I was completely transported and lush descriptions of Giulia and Fab’s garden were so beautifully rendered that I was sure Beech was drawing on a place meaningful to her (it is, as described in this article). And yet, the woman wrestles with her conscience in Italy, seeing it as an escape rather than an attempt to rest, and heal.

Summertime in Italy, fresh vegetables from the garden, taking turns washing the dishes, reading to each other, learning about cherry worms. Strange how badly I could punish myself for abandoning you once, then go and do it again.

There’s a very slight misstep in the novel when the characters become absorbed in a Me Too discussion. It read as Beech having something to say but I question if this was the place to say it (despite the dinner party monologue by one of the woman’s friends being an excellent piece of writing).

I read lots of stories about grief, and one aspect of Sunbathing that sets it apart is the role of Giulia. Giulia is the friend you want while grieving (and in fact, at any time!) - undemanding, gauging the woman’s feelings, steady, and knowing when to give space and when to challenge. This book is as much about friendship as it is about grieving.

4/5

[Kiesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

don’t want to spoil book club but …… i thought this was a pretty lovely book. The nameless main character (maybe i’m just dumb and didn’t remember it), Giulia and Fab, Bric, the little italian town - everything was written well and felt real.

I didn’t cry reading the book, but the prologue !!!

Fav quote - “i was still thinking of our smallness; of how many we all are, how much everything happens, and how it all keeps on happening. I was thinking, also, of how strange it is that we cope. Then i remembered sometimes we don’t”

fav “meeee” moment - when she says she is moving over to youtube as her final parasitic form

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young woman grieving the death of her father by suicide goes to Italy to be nurtured by her best friend. There were some lovely moments in Sunbathing. I particularly enjoyed the Italian scenes of gardening, morning rituals, shopping, quiet observations of animals and the love between Guilia and the protagonist, and fiance Fab. Her father's suicide is explored in terms of the individual experience of grief, avoidance through social media, and dissociation (this in particular I wish was pushed further and given more space), as well as connected to a more systemic concern around men's mental health in Australian culture - this aspect was pretty clunky and too broad for this quiet book. There’s a #metoo storyline which felt very gratuitous and enables the inclusion of a highly tedious kick ons conversation about feminism in a Northcote sharehouse which was painful to read, so full points for realism there.

Ultimately though, I feel I've read so many versions of this book already - it's so similar to many other debuts from Melbournian women writers who are very good at writing beautifully and are interested in the same ideas around feminism, mental health, friendship, politics. I am always intrigued by these books which usually leave me feeling a bit like I'm in an echo chamber as their world is so similar to mine: I alternate between delighting at seeing my neighbourhood on the page and cringing knowing exactly which bar the characters are drinking at. Admittedly, there's probably only one or two degrees separation between me and the authors and this is very much my own problem. I was reminded of Cherry Beach, Our Magic Hour, The Paper House and even Blueberries at times among others, but didn't connect with Sunbathing as much. There is a sneaky yet compelling passage where Beech speaks to this experience of disillusionment, of nothing being new, of the same conversations happening in cities around the world and the same incubator forming people and their values but nothing ever changing. I'll read whatever she publishes next.

[Hannah Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly trying to give this book lower than 5 stars was impossible. This debut from Isobel Beech has some of the most brilliant prose I have ever read. So much discussion on themes such as grief, friendship, loss, performative activism, sexism and so many more. I can’t recommend this book more.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think if I got to live in an old house on a hill above a little village in Italy carefree and rent-free for several weeks a lot of my problems would also be resolved by the end of it.

[Roisin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I want to live with joy and power”

This made me want to write, which is the high praise for a novel I think

[janeee :D · Rating 4 out of 5]

this novel is a national treasure and i cant believe it exits and im so grateful it does . even if it takes on the ugly side of grief n mental illness n all that , it is so kind and tender in a way that a lot of litfic r unable to tap into . its genuinely making me see the true breadth n potential of humanity . love is embedded in each page and everything — down to the characters and punctuation marks — are necessary to produce the truly excellent final product . woowowow i cant believe this book is real .

whats crazy to think abt is that this is a Debut .

[Abbey Hilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m an emotional wreck. I feel everything but mostly exhausted. I can’t remember the last time I cried this much after reading a book. I’m so glad I read sunbathing. I’m so glad books like this one are written.

[hamna · Rating 4 out of 5]

i loved the writing here and highlighted this book to an inch of its life and that's all you need to know. that, and the trigger warnings.

[cherryyemilyy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4☆

I really loved this novel! I don’t know what about it that made me like it so much, but it was just written beautifully. Maybe my own grief is quite recent, maybe I have a deep yearning to spend countless days just living in Italy, who knows!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a beautiful prose. Beech weaved in some heavy themes around suicide, grief and loss but in a simple and lyrical way. I loved the balance of the story between Italy and the protagonists emotions. Something transpired within me reading this. Could not recommend more.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous. I could feel the Italian sun on my face, and taste the acidity of the sun-ripened tomatoes and the creaminess of cheese on bread. I could feel the grief and the sorrow and the love.

[Isa · Rating 3 out of 5]

this didn’t really resonate w me but was still very beautiful <3