This debut novel tells the story of ex-teacher, aspiring writer, and mother, Ali, who reflects upon her childhood friendship with the reckless and wild Jessie. When Jessie dies, Ali confronts the story of their friendship, including her own role in its tragic demise.

The novel is constituted by alternating past and present narratives, as well as Ali’s autobiographical writing. This movement through time and text, including references to a multitude of characters, can initially make the novel confusing, but readers should persist because these dynamics are essential for the story’s emotional urgency and symbolism.

The book’s title refers to the journal in which Jessie ordered Ali to record their increasingly dangerous adventures. (Jessie, a girl who was ‘the inverse of everything,’ was unable to read or write, while Ali excelled.) This journal comes to symbolise how ‘threads of spite’ and ‘hate’ can ‘overtake’ love.

Ryan has a keen eye for detail. Her writing is often vivid and beautiful, especially when the story slows down, as when Ali swims, seeking ‘the comfort and forgiveness of water’. Ryan also manages to capture the clear-sightedness, intensity, and confusion of prepubescent girls, both in Ali’s childhood narrative, and in Ali’s observations of her own fickle, pre-teen daughter, Tam: ‘Loved children were like cats … They accepted attention as if it was merely their due.’

The Golden Book is an original, ambitious and engaging debut. Ryan shows her writerly virtuoso in the sophisticated way she tells this story, ultimately offering readers insights into the nature of power, memory and forgetting, and the nature of the ambivalence – ‘the safety and the sinking’ – that characterises all intimate relationships.

Reviewed by H C Gildfind