Bri Lee knows how to put a sentence together.
Most people get obsessed with plot and genre – they’ll only read something if it fits a certain mold. Yet good writing is about making anything compelling, which is why I can read The New Yorker from cover to cover regardless of what each feature is about.
If someone had simply told me the plot of The Work, I’d have shrugged. It’s about an ambitious New York art gallery owner, Lally, who falls for Pat, a slightly younger Aussie art auctioneer who’s still trying to build a career for himself. They fall in love in New York: but Pat has to fly back to Australia. Can they make it work?
Plot outlines can be so reductive. I could then try to bolster it by mentioning the book’s other themes: feminism, cancel culture, the hypocrisy of the art world and how it functions, and so on.
But really: this book sings because it’s so well written, and the characters are so real, right down to their many, many flaws.
It accurately shows the early stages of a relationship, from the defensiveness to the surrender of falling in love (with a number of surprisingly graphic sex scenes that are still keeping me from falling asleep) – and I especially like how it hints at the darker aspects that await around the corner after love settles in.
I’m also impressed with how Lee seamlessly switches perspectives from Lally to Pat and back again, in a way that just works (and from a writer’s perspective, I know how hard that is to achieve). It helps bring you into both of their worlds, while also showing how frustrating (and often ridiculous) young love is by showing how much they misunderstand each other.
To end with a bad pun, The Work just works. It’s an intelligent yet easy read that provokes thought while also allowing a little escapism.
