Margaret Hawkins has a unique, and very original voice. Her work manages the fine line between droll and compassionate; deadpan rather black humour and open-hearted spirituality. In her second novel, How to Survive a Natural Disaster Hawkins explores the modern, dysfunctional family. There are six narrators: May, April, Roxanne, Craig, Mr Cosmo, and Phoebe, each telling their stories in a kind of confessional first person. Getting used to each of these voices and how they fit in the overall construction of the novel takes a little time, but as each narrative functions as a short chapter, headed by the individual "confessor," the reading is fast paced, and the context becomes clear without too much trouble. May (Esmeralda) is the catalyst that begins the story. She’s adopted from Peru as a four month old baby, taken into the home of Roxanne, April, and the sometimes father figure Craig, and opens by telling the reader that she deliberately didn’t speak until she was seven years old.
May’s arrival is partly an attempt by Roxanne to win back Craig, an artist whose love of cooking and adoration of his two step-children underpins his otherwise slippery character. Instead of bringing Roxanne and Craig closer, May’s arrival develops into a horrorshow of emotions, obsessions, subtle and underhanded tricks, and attempts at escape which end up in a wholly unexpected turn of events that I won’t give away. This is partly due to the gentle and bucolic style of the narrative as each character attempts to gain the reader’s sympathy — a narration that puts the reader in the uncomfortable role of confessee. It’s a fascinating play on the modern family that leaves no character unscathed or undamaged, except for the already damaged three legged dog (the hero of the novel if there is any hero) Mr Cosmo, whose voice is at least as real and pervasive as the human characters.
Phoebe, a friendly neighbour, has a strong role in the novel, but as a mentally unstable outsider, the reasons for her involvement, along with the extent of her illness, remain unclear. But this isn’t a story where clarity is important. Phoebe’s character is one that is both odd and compelling. She almost functions as an uber-narrator, providing the book’s title in her obsessive collecting of news headlines, a desperate attempt to find clues to the meaning of life:
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