Tidal Lock

A disturbed young woman searches for her absent father in this lyrical and recursive novel from Hill (Sea of Hooks). As the story begins, Olana lives in a motel room with the wife of her father, who went missing when she was 13. This woman, whom Olana calls “the holder,” claims to be her mother and says her father is dead, but Olana is doubtful on both counts. She periodically receives treatment from a therapist for melancholic miasma and lives in a fog of amnesia and delusion, barely remembering a traumatic childhood event. Hill moves the story forward with Olana’s imagistic reflections, which convey her peculiar way of seeing the world (she names the last day she saw her father “Scissor Day,” and commemorates it by cutting her valuables to pieces). The story is difficult to follow and ultimately underdeveloped, but Olana’s clever turns of phrase charm (“I’ve heard you can beat a dead horse but you can’t make it drink”), and the author successfully echoes dreamy diaristic works by Robert Burton and Fernano Pessoa. Hill demonstrates considerable skill. (Nov.)