Finding humour in dark places

In our new column, we explore a book that’s witty as well as poignant.

I first heard about Sorrow and Bliss on Ctrl Alt Delete, author Emma Gannon’s podcast about work and creativity, which thankfully doesn’t tell you to hustle harder (who needs those?) What caught my attention was the drawing of parallels between this book and the TV show Fleabag — a dark comedy — although author Meg Mason insists that this is about a woman in her 40s and not a millennial. And she’s right. While this is a narrative that explores dark themes with lightness and biting humour — which is what makes it such a pleasure to read —it is also a portrait of a slowly unravelling marriage.

Martha has known Patrick since they were gawky teenagers, meeting every year at Christmas at her aunt’s house. But it takes them years to speak to each other properly, moving past their own awkwardness. Their romance is clumsy, but utterly endearing. They decide to marry the very day that they spill their feelings to each other, hours after Patrick, a doctor, delivers Martha’s sister’s baby in their aunt’s bathroom.

The opening chapter of Sorrow and Bliss ends with Patrick leaving the marriage, two days after Martha’s 40th birthday party which he organises, and she participates in, reluctantly. “One day, years later, my mother would tell me that no marriage makes sense to the outside world because, she would say, a marriage is its own world.”

What I love about the book is that it goes beyond their relationship, and explores so many other equally significant relationships with wit and tenderness. I relished the parts about Martha’s ‘minorly important’ sculptor mother; her father, a blocked poet; her sister Ingrid, struggling with baby after baby; and even her narcissistic first husband. And it’s really in Mason’s ability to flesh out characters and make you care about them even a quarter-way into the book that her strength lies.

It’s impossible not to feel empathy for Martha — bright, talented, struggling to make sense of her exploding brain, and her wild highs and lows. Dealing with mental illness can be isolating, and it’s not easy to explain what you’re experiencing to anyone else, let alone yourself. “It hurt to talk, to breathe, to cry, to read, to hear music, to be in a room with other people and to be by myself.”

Through Martha, you’re offered a peek into what it takes to live with a mental illness in the UK — not that it’s the same for everyone — and yet it shows you that even when it feels crippling, having a support system offers some solace. Like the constant presence of her gentle father, who stays up with her at night when she is unwell, offering to read her poetry, and talking in his quiet voice. I was so moved by the bits with her father, reminding me of my own, while also realising how refreshing to see men who are gentle, for a change. What might seem disconcerting to some readers is the author’s choice to not name Martha’s illness — I did find it annoying for a while, I’ll admit, being eager to pin down her despair to something concrete. There is a comfort in being able to name something. Having said that, I can see why Mason left it to the reader to decide. While I’m always drawn to the messy and strange ways in which families learn to stick together, often failing at it, it really is Mason’s ability at being able to find humour in dark places that made me want to set everything else aside and read in bed all day.

Unbound is a new monthly column for anyone who likes to take shelter in books, and briefly forget the dreariness of adult life.

The author is a Bengaluru-based writer and editor who believes in the power of daily naps. Find her on Instagram @yaminivijayan