Review of THE LISTENERS by Jordan Tannahill

 3 Stars

I found this title on the 2021 Giller Prize shortlist and so chose it for my latest audiobook.  It was disappointing.

Claire Devon, a middle-aged high school teacher, starts hearing a low-frequency noise that no one else hears.  She can find no obvious source for the sound which has negative health effects.   Eventually she finds others who can also hear the hum; the group meets regularly and, as their personal and family lives disintegrate, finds a sense of community.  Claire, for instance, alienates her family and friends with her behaviour but forms a close bond with Kyle, one of her students who also hears the humming sound.  The outside world, however, views the group with suspicion; it is seen as a cult. 

Claire is a problematic character.  The book is framed as her memoir in which she gives her version of events.  She claims she is being as objective as possible, but I could not but wonder how reliable a narrator she is.  Claire is not a likeable character.  She makes fun of friends who have religious faith.  She gives her daughter Ashley a vibrator for her 14^th birthday.  She is very self-obsessed; she claims she loves her daughter more than life, but her actions don’t always suggest this is true.  Claire is also not realistic.  She is supposedly logical and rational but soon buys into the belief that the hum makes the listeners special and can even bring them to a euphoric state.  Some of her decisions indicate very poor judgement.  For example, she spends time with Kyle outside of school and then seems amazed when her job is at risk. 

Other characters are also not realistic.  Claire’s husband Paul and daughter Ashley quickly dismiss Claire’s complaints about the hum.  She has physical symptoms like nosebleeds, insomnia, and headaches, yet her family does little to help her and eventually just abandons her.  Ashley is particularly detestable, though her selfishness reminded me of Claire’s self-centredness:  the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Claire’s family abandons her so one can understand her need for another family, but the bond among the group members seems to develop very quickly even though they react differently to the hum and have conflicting views as to what they should do about it.  They are soon referring to themselves as a family, though the ending suggests that the bond is not very strong. 

It would not be a stretch to suggest that the book reflects the current political situation in the United States where Republicans and Democrats seem to live in very different realities.  Conspiracy theories and extreme beliefs are tearing apart families and communities in reality, just as they do in the novel, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.  I could think of many parallels between one group member’s paranoia and insistence on arming himself and the behaviour of some Americans who feel their ideas of themselves and their country are threatened. 

I did not enjoy the book.  I found Claire’s constant self-justifications annoying; in fact, much of the book is repetitive.  Several times, I turned off my iPod because I just didn’t want to listen to anymore of her whining and self-pity.  I can’t understand why this book was nominated for as prestigious an award as the Giller Prize.