Exploring Grief and Environmental Collapse in Madeleine Watts's Latest Novel

Madeleine Watts's sophomore novel, Elegy, Southwest, captures the complexities of personal grief set against a backdrop of environmental collapse during a two-week road trip across the American Southwest in November 2018. This narrative chronicles the lives of Lewis and Eloise, a young couple from New York City, as they grapple with Lewis’s sorrow following his mother’s death and Eloise’s realization that she might be pregnant. The novel eschews conventional climate narratives, presenting a poignant exploration of cli-fi that emphasizes the persistence of daily life amidst the specter of ecological decay.

Life and Loss in a Changing World

Watts's choice to address her readers in the second person invites a deeply intimate connection, famously inspired by Roland Barthes's reflection on absence and presence. In an enlightening interview, she expressed that this choice reflects her own internal dialogues of grief—the conversations we'd have with those we've lost. “To speak to the lost person is to make them present and invoke them,” Watts explains. The second-person narrative serves to conjure these individuals back into existence further amplifying the emotional stakes of her characters’ lives.

A Genre-Defying Narrative

The book deftly incorporates multiple elements: a road trip, a climate crisis, a marital relationship, and the struggles of coping with loss. Watts describes it as a “genre mishmash,” reflecting her attempts to write from a place of confinement during the pandemic. This multi-faceted narrative combines elements of love and environmental awareness, intertwining personal stories with broader societal issues. While addressing daunting questions about hope amidst ecological despair, Watts reveals that the pervading consciousness of climate change permeates everything in her work: “If you write a realist novel but fail to mention climate change, it will still be there in your work because you live in it,” she points out.

Body Autonomy and Reproductive Rights

A recurring theme in both of Watts's novels is the portrayal of pregnancy and abortion, reflecting her ongoing fascination with the intricacies of the human body. In her first novel, The Inland Sea, she focused on themes of control and bodily autonomy in moments of crisis, while in Elegy, Southwest, she navigates these topics in light of the shifting landscape of reproductive rights in America, particularly in the wake of the Roe v. Wade overturn. The societal impact of such changes has left a distinct mark on her characters' lives. “I remember being on the subway that day and seeing women crying. It felt like people were grieving, and it also felt like people were grieving alone,” she recalls, underscoring the privacy that often envelops reproductive events.

Editorial Choices: A Community Perspective

Watts's decision to include endnotes and indexes—essentially footnotes—adds a layer of shared experience to her fiction. These elements serve to acknowledge the extensive research that supports her writing while fostering a sense of community. “If I were writing a book of nonfiction, I would name everybody and cite the sources that had gone into my thinking,” she advises, pointing to her admiration for authors like Claire Vaye Watkins who acknowledge their influences within their narratives. This transparency enriches the reading experience, as it grounds the fictional journey in real-world contexts.

Embracing Ambiguity in Endings

Central to Watts's narrative is the theme of ambiguity, reflected in her approach to endings. As she navigates through grief and loss, she recognizes that many experiences lack clear conclusions. “Grief is cyclical... there’s no conclusion—your life just begins to grow around grief,” she reflects. This perspective informs the novel’s conclusion, which deliberately leaves certain fates unresolved, echoing the uncertainty that often accompanies personal and ecological tragedies. This ambiguity invites readers to engage deeply with the emotional and moral complexities of Watts's world, reinforcing the idea that closure is often an illusion.

Ultimately, Elegy, Southwest invites readers to confront not just the intricacies of relationships and loss, but also the urgent realities of a world teetering on the brink. Through her compelling narrative style and profound observations, Madeleine Watts encourages an exploration of what it means to live and endure amid fading certainties.