Book review: Never Look Desperate, Rachel Matthews
A comedic novel that cradles emotional warmth at its core.
16 Oct 2023
Set between post-lockdown Melbourne and the digital landscape of dating apps, Rachel Matthewsโ third novel, Never Look Desperate, takes the idea of mid-life romance to a place of gentle humour.
Over the course of the novel, three narrative threads are offered to the reader. In one, we meet Bernard, a man in mourning for his wife and father following their deaths during the pandemic. In another, we encounter Bernardโs mother, Goldie, whose relationship with her son is crumbling โ and, in a third, we are introduced to Minh, a woman with โa messy shoulder-length bob with a thick fringeโ, whom Bernard meets online.
Each plot line continues in interspersed, alternating chapters over the course of the novel. The characters on which Donโt Look Desperate pivot are largely absent: Silvia and Marvin, Bernardโs late wife and father. Their ghostly presences propel the narrative forward โ the spaces their departures leave in the lives of their loved ones creating cracks in which the novel sets down roots.
While Bernard is a widower, Minh has had a series of short-term relationships. โEach one,โ Matthews tells us, โsparked a new haircut.โ Her relationship with her family is complicated; their arrival in Australia as refugees creating a complex web of trauma and memory. Minh meets Bernard on Bumble. Their conversation online begins slowly and awkwardly. Both are weighed down by their personal relationship histories; trying to connect with strangers over the internet in mid-life is no easy task. Intimacy in the digital age โ framed by the isolations unearthed through the course of the Melbourne lockdowns โ is a theme Matthews returns to repeatedly throughout Never Look Desperate.
Before his first date with Minh, Bernard stands in the bathroom at work and reflects on an article he has read recently about a US psychologist discussing the difficulties and benefits attached to socialising in a digital world. Expounding on the โimportance of being socialโ despite the rise in social phobias that โmany people grappled with, after being inside for so longโ, the article fills Bernard with complicated feelings.
He remembers, with shame, the pleasures of eating takeaway pizza alone, and of the blank loneliness of Zoom meetings. He glances at himself in the bathroom mirror, and feels the ridges in the skin of his face. It is a moment that passes quickly in the trajectory of the novel, but which feels as if it imparts the hard kernel of Matthewsโ narrative intent.
For both Bernard and Minh, communication and connection are uneasy routes, filled with embarrassing moments and awkward messages โ but their desire for anything that remotely approaches genuine love or affection is as equally strong as their feelings of quiet disgust at the sleazy dating scene in which they find themselves.
Read: Book review: Fake Heroes, Otto English
Never Look Desperate is an easy read, which feels as if it would work well as a mini-series or short film. In Matthewsโ novel, as Bernard, Goldie and Minh journey toward deeper self-awareness, and forge stronger connections with one another, we gradually come to realise the profound impact of intergenerational trauma and social isolation on each of their lives.
Never Look Desperate, Rachel Matthews
Publisher: Transit Lounge
ISBN: 9780645565393
Pages: 304pp
Publication Date: 1 September 2023
RRP: $32.99
Ellie Fisher is a poet and writer. Her creative work has appeared in Westerly Magazine, Gems zine, and Pulch Mag, amongst others. Ellie is studying Honours in Creative Writing at The University of Western Australia. You can find her on Instagram at @bodilyofferings.
