2021 Giller Finalist Book Review: The Listeners by Jordan Tannahill
The Listeners by Jordan Tannahill is a wild and intoxicating ride, but if you’re looking for an escape from the news or from the culture wars debate, this novel may not be for you. Current tensions including fake-news, mass hysteria, the dissemination of misinformation, polarization, cancel culture, identity politics, and incivility weave throughout the narrative creating confusion and anxiety not only for the fictionalized characters, but for the reader as well. Tannahill pits opposing worldviews against one another, but he also marries them. In so doing, he begs the question: What is the difference between deviance and normalcy? What is truth? What is reality? What is sanity?
Claire is a typical middle-aged suburban high school English teacher. She lives in a nice home with her husband and teenaged daughter. Her life is ordinary; she has friends and is well-respected. She accepts science over faith and eschews all religion or spirituality. She is balanced. Until she begins to hear The Hum.
A low frequency buzz has infiltrated Claire’s otherwise quiet neighbourhood, but not everyone can hear it. In fact, most people can’t. For Claire, though, the constant drone becomes debilitating. She suffers headaches, nosebleeds, and sleeplessness. Convinced there is nothing wrong with her, Claire’s husband and daughter dismiss her experiences and find her complaints a nuisance. She is all but silenced until one of her students, seventeen-year-old Kyle, confides that he hears The Hum too. The two embark on a quest to uncover the source of the sound. What they find both fulfills and unravels them.
The novel is captivating. Tannahill grips his reader from the very first page and the first person narration brings urgency to the plot. Conspiracy theories are embedded in the narrative in such well-crafted ways that they worm into the reader’s mind, clouding perspective and causing deep unrest. The Listeners is a commentary on the state of the world today, but it doesn’t abandon all hope. Rather, it invites readers to engage mindfully with the current zeitgeist through critical thinking and thoughtful dialogue. It challenges us to sit in the tension, to be open to new ways of understanding, to stretch ourselves beyond ourselves.
A recommended read!
The Listeners By Jordan Tannahill Harper Avenue, 2021, pp. 286 ISBN: 978-1-4434-6413-0