The premise that unfolds in the opening pages of SILHOUETTE is as simple as it is harrowing – a man, walking his dog in the city, spots a furled umbrella on a nearby rooftop patio that, he decides, is a woman. It could be the beginning of a light-hearted comic novel, but in the hands of Paul G. Swingle, it is the jumping-off point for a thoughtful exploration of the depths of loneliness.
Jim is a real-estate lawyer and a widower – a “no-count” by his own admission, the sort of person who quietly envies even the struggling young couple buying their first house, because at least they have each other. He has only his dog, and Silhouette, as he calls her, for company. Meanwhile, Silhouette’s real name is Gladys, and she has a potty mouth and no self-esteem, longing for even a single glance in her direction. And so the novel plays out, with this odd couple entwined, yet apart, neither hearing the other’s perorations on life. Gladys knows nothing of Jim’s observations of the clients he works for (for the first part of the novel, they are mostly internalized in any case), while Jim never gets to hear Gladys’s trenchant views on sentimentalism. Perhaps this is just as well for the quietly romantic Jim, who nevertheless has enough self-awareness to not abandon himself entirely to his flight of fancy. As he acknowledges, he is a Don Quixote, tilting at his windmill on the roof.
But in the same way, neither party sees the similarities in outlook. Both are religious; both love classical music; both have a cutting sense of humor. A scene in which the pair brush past one another in a supermarket without realizing is almost too much to bear. The first-person narrative switches from character to character as Jim and Gladys play out their concerns and desires, but Swingle is careful to leave uncertainties where they are needed. Is Gladys indeed an inanimate object, or is she a nurse with suicidal ideation? There is also remarkable intellectual range, with explorations of everything from quantum physics and Pascal’s wager to football and Frank Capra movies.
Swingle succeeds in giving his two protagonists unique voices, and the characters are fully formed and rounded. The main issues here are structural. Psychological novels derive their readability from the internal landscapes they reveal, but that does not negate the need for a plot to propel the action. Here, that plot is rather slight, and even if there are no stakes as such, a “will-they-won’t-they” dynamic will not suffice given how much of the work relies on uncertainty. Though Jim and Gladys’s meandering anecdotes recreate the moiling nature of clinical depression splendidly, these diversions, which largely constitute the novel’s “action”, require something more to fully cohere. Nevertheless, SILHOUETTE is engaging, artful, and tender – a moving account that questions our motivations for life and love with thoughtfulness, humor, and ultimately, hope.
Paul G. Swingle’s beautifully written psychological novel, SILHOUETTE, offers thoughtful commentary on the plight of two lonely individuals looking for companionship and love.
~Craig Jones for IndieReader