Sipsworth
by Simon Van Booy
Simon Van Booy is the rarest of contemporary novelists. He refuses to be a cynic. His stories have a moral. The plots perk, and there is always a gratifying twist in the spirit of O. Henry. His characters—distinct, fallible, and appealing—learn something along the way. In Sipsworth, his ninth novel, Van Booy adds another dimension rare in modern work: an animal as a character—in this case, a mouse, from whom the book takes its title.
Regular readers of Cable Street will know of our editors’ fondness for animals in their art. Just take a peek at this issue’s portfolio of animal photography curated by Jan Schmidt. Smile at Friedrich the duck in Eric Darton’s novel, Free City; at Quintus the canary in Bronwyn Mills’ manuscript, Canary Club; and at the human-animal metamorphosis in Mills’ novel Beastly’s Tale.
So, as fiction focused on Sipsworth the mouse, Van Booy’s book is right up our alley. As fiction written with elegance—clear as the bell on the proverbial cat—the book is a charming entertainment. But most of all, as fiction that raises ethical issues worthy of our attention, Sipsworth is a work of cultural value.
The narrative of Sipsworth revolves around the interactions of the mouse and Helen Cartwright, a woman in her 80s who has moved into a cottage in the English town of her childhood. Helen is alone, returning home after many years living abroad. As the book opens, Van Booy’s prose captures the sadness and boredom Helen experiences. She is isolated, and her disconnection makes it difficult for her to conjure enthusiasm for life. She merely lives on, going through the motions. “Walking helped,” writes Van Booy of Helen, “and she tried to go out every day, even when it poured. But life for her was finished…“
Not a single person who glimpsed her bony figure flapping down Westminster Crescent could say they knew her. She was simply part of a background against which their own lives rolled unceasingly on.
Van Booy’s early descriptions of Helen paint a vivid, realistic, and all-too-uncommon picture of the cognitive decline experienced by many older adults. This decline arises not from an organic syndrome, but from loneliness and the lack of routine speaking, listening, and touching others. As a result, Helen does odd things. One night, in the heavy rain that falls often during the two-week period covered by the book, Helen hauls in some items from a neighbor’s trash, consisting of an aquarium filled with old toys and other detritus. Helen discovers a mouse in this debris. In the first of the book’s many lyrical metaphors, the mouse that Helen finds in her neighbor’s waste takes her on a journey out of own personal wasteland.
Sipsworth, like all of Van Booy’s fiction, takes so many unexpected turns, it is impossible to share more about the plot without spoilers. But characterizations are another matter. Helen Cartwright, superficially a tired and dull older woman, is revealed in successive chapters to be a person of depth, intelligence, and creativity. As an older woman myself, I am grateful for Helen. All of us who are older can stop and thank Van Booy for making an elderly woman a central character, not a tangential bit of comedy or tragedy. Helen is a beacon for people who, because of our years, are marginalized and invisible, the butt of Gen-Z’s jokes, and the object of last acceptable bias, ageism.
Sipsworth, who is always a real mouse and not a cartoon, is nevertheless fully fleshed as book’s other main character. We observe his distinctive behaviors, such as his liking for a particular old slipper. We see and hear his physical movements, household habits, and ways of eating the foods Helen gives him. And we watch the mouse becoming braver in Helen’s presence.
Helen carries the slipper to the sink and Sipsworth hops onto the pie box as though it is something they have rehearsed. It’s raining so hard Helen can hear it on the roof of their home like a shower of coins. When the mouse’s meal is ready, Helen impulsively holds out a fragment of cashew, Sipsworth grabs onto her finger and pulls himself into her palm.
An important moral of the story emerges from the characterizations of Helen and Sipsworth. Even the smallest, most commonplace lives have value and dignity. This belief—so compassionate, so devoid of contemporary “snark”—is fundamental to Van Booy’s work. In an interview I conducted with him in 2020, Van Booy stressed that his literary intuition, what he calls his “third voice,” heralds art within the ordinary.
“I sense poetry in the Long Island suburbs, at Home Depot, at the Olive Garden,” he told me, “The philosopher Jacques Derrida—who once gave an interview leaning on packs of his granddaughter’s diapers—found linguistic mystery everywhere, even in the ordinary things considered unworthy of literature. Likewise, my third voice leads me to poetry in ordinary places, which may lie in the opposite direction from what the literary establishment deems worthy.”
Additional characters contribute to Sipsworth’s praise of the ordinary. Like Helen and Sipsworth, the residents in and around Westminster Crescent have much to teach us, but they are complete, distinct, and fully formed—never “types” fashioned to deliver a lesson. Delightfully, too, while each character is imperfect, none is a villain. Sipsworth refreshed me, reminding me that many people—and most people I know in my own community—are decent souls.
Van Booy’s craft and style enable him to express both ethics and emotions without ever becoming strident or cloying. In this way, he reminds me of the great British stylists of the mid 20th century. He is effortless, wry, and graceful in the way of Lawrence Durrell, Muriel Spark (in her kindly books, like A Far Cry from Kensington), and Ellis Peters. Van Booy is succinct, but has a gift for selecting verbs and varying the length of sentences to create an agile rhythm that moves the text along. Sipsworth, like all of Van Booy’s books and short stories, trips off the mind’s tongue. It is, by the author’s design, an easy and entertaining book. It lingers as lovely object, which makes its deep lessons all the more memorable.
I confess: several years ago, when I first learned of Van Booy’s work and before I read it, I was determined not to like it. After all, I preened myself on pessimism, and the reviews of Van Booy’s books stressed their feeling, charm, and moral conscience. Then I read Van Booy’s collection of stories, Love Begins in Winter, winner of the Frank O’Connor short-story award, and his novel Father’s Day. Despite all my pretensions, I loved these works—their plot twists, their engaging characters, the compassion at their heart. Van Booy’s work is literary in the very best sense—writing that gives pleasure and makes a point. Sipsworth is no exception. In this resonant book, Van Booy shows us the smallest of small lives, and evokes both our love and our wonder for their existence.
—Dana Delibovi
***