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y separately published work icon Echolalia single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 Echolalia
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'What could drive a mother to do the unthinkable?

'Before: Emma Cormac married into a perfect life but now she's barely coping. Inside a brand new, palatial home, her three young children need more than she can give. Clem, a wilful four year old, is intent on mimicking her grandmother; the formidable matriarch Pat Cormac. Arthur is almost three and still won't speak. At least baby Robbie is perfect. He's the future of the family. So why can't Emma hold him without wanting to scream?

'Beyond their gleaming windows, a lake vista is evaporating. The birds have mostly disappeared, too. All over Shorehaven, the Cormac family buys up land to develop into cheap housing for people they openly scorn.

'After: The summers have grown even fiercer and the Cormac name doesn't mean what it used to. Arthur has taken it abroad, far from a family unable to understand him. Clem is a fragile young artist who turns obsessively to the same dark subject. Pat doesn't even know what legacy means now. Not since the ground started sinking beneath her.

'Meanwhile, a nameless woman has been released from state care. She sticks to her twelve-step program, recites her affirmations, works one day at a time on a humble life devoid of ambition or redemption. How can she have an after when baby Robbie doesn't?' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication : 'To Olof and for the rest of us, left behind'

  • Epigraph : 'They fear, they suffer, they strike, they are struck, they fall under the blows of the closest to them, each of them suffers in their place in the family scene, each man and woman in their name and in the name of the parent.' - Hélène Cixous, The Communion of Suffering

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Vintage , 2021 .
      image of person or book cover 3942311317980252684.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 309p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 1 June 2021
      ISBN: 9781760899615
Form: audiobook
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Other Formats

  • Large print.
  • Dyslexic edition.
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Related Works

Echolalia : An Extract Briohny Doyle , 2021 single work extract novel
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , June 2021;
VIEW ALL RELATED WORKS (1)

Works about this Work

“Complicit Concealments”: Developing Ecological Consciousness in Sally Abbott’s Closing Down (2017) and Briohny Doyle’s Echolalia (2021) Chris Holdsworth , Rohan Wilson , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , 31 October vol. 28 no. 2 2024; 'This article explores the challenges faced by climate fiction writers who address human responses to climate change, emphasising the need to expose the underlying political and economic mechanisms of the climate crisis. It builds on the critique offered by theorists Adam Trexler, Timothy Clark, Mark Fisher and Amitav Ghosh, highlighting the risk of climate fiction novels becoming “complicit concealments” if they fail to focus on the principle drivers of the carbon economy – overconsumption, economic growth and market-based thinking. We analyse a growing trend in Australian climate fiction, where connections between neoliberal capitalism and climate change are becoming major themes. Novels like Sally Abbott's Closing Down (2010) and Briohny Doyle’s Echolalia (2021) represent characters’ relations to society and the economy and try to capture the complex realities of climate change. Based on this analysis, we propose the concept of “ecological consciousness” as a potential narrative strategy for writers, building on the Marxist concept of class consciousness, which extends awareness beyond traditional class dynamics to encompass the interconnectedness of humans with the environment. The article concludes by emphasising the strength and versatility of this approach, showcasing its potential for providing a holistic perspective on societal and environmental dynamics in climate fiction.' (Publication abstract)
Book Review : Echolalia by Briohny Doyle Vanessa Francesca , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: ArtsHub , June 2021;
— Review of Echolalia Briohny Doyle , 2021 single work novel

'A horror story of motherhood and mundanity in the throes of climate change.'
Leaving the Echo Chamber Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , September / Spring vol. 80 no. 3 2021; (p. 204-207) Meanjin Online 2021;
— Review of Echolalia Briohny Doyle , 2021 single work novel 'Set in a near future where 50-degree summers bully the horizon, Briohny Doyle’s second novel, Echolalia, sprawls among psychothriller, crime, speculative and literary fiction to make a highly original mark on the publishing landscape as she wrestles with and departs from the tropes of those genres. The Cormac family are the owners of a small property empire in the fictional town of Shorehaven, where a lake is slowly drying up. When Emma, an interior architecture trainee ‘of no social pedigree’ marries into the family, she gives birth to three children whom she struggles to care for next to her aloof husband and antagonistic in-laws. The increasing pressures around her culminate in psychological collapse and she commits infanticide. These schisms build up over 26 chapters, each one sign-posted by ‘Before’ and ‘After’; through this split structure, Doyle creates an unnerving dissonance in showing how past and present actions seal the fate of future generations in a rapidly changing climate.' (Introduction)
y separately published work icon Live Recording : Briohny Doyle in Conversation 2021 23474429 2021 single work podcast interview

'A conversation between authors Ronnie Scott and Briohny Doyle. Together they discuss Doyle's latest novel, Echolalia.' (Production summary)
y separately published work icon At Home with Briohny Doyle Astrid Edwards (interviewer), 2021 23448440 2021 single work podcast interview

'Briohny Doyle is the author of The Island Will Sink, Echolalia and Adult Fantasy. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The Monthly, Meanjin, Overland, The Griffith Review, The Good Weekend, The Guardian, and the Sunday Times.  She is a lecturer in writing and literature at Deakin University and a 2020 Fulbright Scholar.' (Production introduction)
Briohny Doyle : Echolalia Amy Walters , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , June 2021;
— Review of Echolalia Briohny Doyle , 2021 single work novel

The new novel from Briohny Doyle, author of The Island Will Sink and Adult Fantasy, explores motherhood and capitalism.
What Drives a Mother to Do the Unthinkable? Jack Cameron Stanton , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 29 May 2021; (p. 14)
— Review of Echolalia Briohny Doyle , 2021 single work novel
Echolalia by Briohny Doyle : A Dark, Deft and Gripping Read about Mania and Motherhood Zoya Patel , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 4 June 2021;
— Review of Echolalia Briohny Doyle , 2021 single work novel
Harvesting Jessica White , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , September 2021;
— Review of Echolalia Briohny Doyle , 2021 single work novel

'I closed the pages of Briohny Doyle’s Echolalia with a sigh of satisfaction at its beautiful construction and timeliness. The actions of her protagonist, Emma, seem a pertinent reaction to our zeitgeist: a world in which our flaccid government cannot mount a response to the recent IPCC report, which warns that ‘with further global warming, every region is projected to increasingly experience concurrent and multiple changes in climatic impact-drivers’. At the same time, I experienced a spell of disquiet at the way the novel mobilises disability to symbolise something that everyone, whether abled or disabled, should be able to recognise: the impact of our actions on the future.' (Introduction)
Leaving the Echo Chamber Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , September / Spring vol. 80 no. 3 2021; (p. 204-207) Meanjin Online 2021;
— Review of Echolalia Briohny Doyle , 2021 single work novel 'Set in a near future where 50-degree summers bully the horizon, Briohny Doyle’s second novel, Echolalia, sprawls among psychothriller, crime, speculative and literary fiction to make a highly original mark on the publishing landscape as she wrestles with and departs from the tropes of those genres. The Cormac family are the owners of a small property empire in the fictional town of Shorehaven, where a lake is slowly drying up. When Emma, an interior architecture trainee ‘of no social pedigree’ marries into the family, she gives birth to three children whom she struggles to care for next to her aloof husband and antagonistic in-laws. The increasing pressures around her culminate in psychological collapse and she commits infanticide. These schisms build up over 26 chapters, each one sign-posted by ‘Before’ and ‘After’; through this split structure, Doyle creates an unnerving dissonance in showing how past and present actions seal the fate of future generations in a rapidly changing climate.' (Introduction)
y separately published work icon At Home with Briohny Doyle Astrid Edwards (interviewer), 2021 23448440 2021 single work podcast interview

'Briohny Doyle is the author of The Island Will Sink, Echolalia and Adult Fantasy. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The Monthly, Meanjin, Overland, The Griffith Review, The Good Weekend, The Guardian, and the Sunday Times.  She is a lecturer in writing and literature at Deakin University and a 2020 Fulbright Scholar.' (Production introduction)
y separately published work icon Live Recording : Briohny Doyle in Conversation 2021 23474429 2021 single work podcast interview

'A conversation between authors Ronnie Scott and Briohny Doyle. Together they discuss Doyle's latest novel, Echolalia.' (Production summary)
“Complicit Concealments”: Developing Ecological Consciousness in Sally Abbott’s Closing Down (2017) and Briohny Doyle’s Echolalia (2021) Chris Holdsworth , Rohan Wilson , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , 31 October vol. 28 no. 2 2024; 'This article explores the challenges faced by climate fiction writers who address human responses to climate change, emphasising the need to expose the underlying political and economic mechanisms of the climate crisis. It builds on the critique offered by theorists Adam Trexler, Timothy Clark, Mark Fisher and Amitav Ghosh, highlighting the risk of climate fiction novels becoming “complicit concealments” if they fail to focus on the principle drivers of the carbon economy – overconsumption, economic growth and market-based thinking. We analyse a growing trend in Australian climate fiction, where connections between neoliberal capitalism and climate change are becoming major themes. Novels like Sally Abbott's Closing Down (2010) and Briohny Doyle’s Echolalia (2021) represent characters’ relations to society and the economy and try to capture the complex realities of climate change. Based on this analysis, we propose the concept of “ecological consciousness” as a potential narrative strategy for writers, building on the Marxist concept of class consciousness, which extends awareness beyond traditional class dynamics to encompass the interconnectedness of humans with the environment. The article concludes by emphasising the strength and versatility of this approach, showcasing its potential for providing a holistic perspective on societal and environmental dynamics in climate fiction.' (Publication abstract)
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (9)

Awards

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