Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda
Described succinctly as ‘the millenial take on the vampire novel’, Claire Kohda’s debut novel Woman, Eating is both exactly that and so much more. Written in the first person, this is the story of Lydia: a young woman who is leaving home for the first time to take up an unpaid internship at a prestigious gallery in London. Lydia is an artist, a frustrated foodie, a single child – and, yes, a vampire. Born human, and turned by her mother when she was just a few days old, Lydia is caught in stasis between two existences – no longer a girl but not yet a woman; no longer human but not quite a vampire; both predator and prey to the men who watch her from the shadows; and trapped in a stifling relationship with her self-loathing mother, but orphaned by her mother’s dementia. Taking her first tentative steps into adulthood and independence, Lydia is determined to forge a bright future for herself … but before she can find her place in the world she’ll have to decide who she really is.
Confronting issues including race, colonisation, disability, social isolation, and sexual assault with a deft touch, Woman, Eating merges the fantastical with the mundane in a way that is both compelling and eminently readable. The character of Lydia shines from the page, her warm and witty narrative voice so genuine that I felt like I knew her. There were moments that surprised me into laughter, into grief, into rage, and into pained second-hand embarrassment. Woman, Eating is an accomplished debut, a meditation on art, food, hunger, and what it’s like to exist in a world where you don’t feel like you belong. Highly recommended.
