Lithium

Argentine artist and poet Denis makes her English-language debut with a vivid yet scattered chronicle of a 20-something woman trying to make sense of her disordered existence. The lyrical novel unfolds in the second person, as the unnamed narrator addresses her ex-boyfriend, whom she first met when they were teens and she saw him breathing fire in a field, where “parts of you shone like a Vermeer.” Unemployed and living off an inheritance, the narrator moves into her ex’s apartment to look after his cats while he’s hospitalized for a mental breakdown. She yearns for the routine and stability of a full-time job, reflects on her miscarriage years earlier, and has one-night stands with other men. The fragmented chapters are sometimes awkwardly cut together, to the point that they lose cohesion or momentum, but Denis reels the reader in with indelible images and provocative hints at the connections between the narrative’s various strands (“That the cat I gave you attacked me is probably one big metaphor for something I don’t understand”). Along the way, the narrator considers how she might make a new life for herself and stop feeling like a ghost. Admirers of cross-genre works by writers like Kate Zambreno will find much to appreciate. (Feb.)