Review: Only About Love by Debbi Voisey

Could he pull it off? This relationship thing? He could see the future stretching out before him like a never-ending ribbon of time and he wondered, for the first time, if he could navigate it and make it to the end, and be happy along the way.

Frank is the seemingly confident front man in a local rock-n-roll band, but when he meets his future wife, Liz, he is momentarily disarmed. Something about her is different from the groupies who clamber around him at the end of his gigs. When things begin to look serious, Liz puts her foot down. She won’t put up with any nonsense, she tells him. He’s going to have to behave.

In chapters that move back and forth in time, Debbi Voisey’s beautiful novella gives us snapshots of Frank throughout his life: as he will be, as he was, and as he is now. In quick succession, we see him at the end of his life – confused and infirm, followed by images of him as a much younger man – vital and charismatic. We see him as a loving father to two young children, and as a devoted husband to Liz. But we also see the frightened and lonely young boy that Frank was at the beginning and how those early years shape the rest of his life. Despite his confident appearances, Frank is broken beyond repair.

With his perfectly Brylcreemed hair, Frank continues to be the centre of attention even when he settles down into a routine job to support his family. And more than anything – more than the love and respect of his wife and children – Frank craves attention. Time and again, he gives in to temptation as he moves from one affair after another.

Only About Love, by Debbi Voisey is described as a ‘novella in flash’, with each chapter presented from the perspective of Frank, Liz, or one of their children, John and Dawn, at various points in their lives. We see the heartache and the trauma each character endures, their doubts and disappointments, but despite Frank being the cause of that heartache, his family remain loyal to the end. Yes, he is greatly flawed, but they never stop loving him.

Though emotions sometimes run high (John and Dawn endure the sounds their parents’ many breakups and makeups from adjoining rooms), events are largely reported in a matter-of-fact tone rather than dramatized. Like a crime report, this book documents the evidence and only touches lightly on the impact Frank’s crimes have on his family. There is no climactic moment of confrontation. No cross-examination. And Frank, himself, while acknowledging his crimes, never questions himself, either. There is no introspection. No self-analysis. No self-pity, and no real sense of guilt until it’s far too late.

Midway through the book, the story jumps forward. Frank is seventy-five now, and we see him struggling with tasks he has performed effortlessly a thousand times before. There is a stark change in tone in this part of the story as we view snapshots of Frank’s slow decline. His past unfaithfulness is all but forgotten, now, and piece by piece the man he was is disassembled.

The last few chapters are a tough read at times as the details of dementia – what it does to the person, what it does to his family – are laid out before us. As the disease advances, Frank’s fears and frustrations become our own. Who of us does not fear this long, drawn-out erasure of the self? At the very end, however, we are given a reprieve from the oppressiveness of a life that lingers after the self has gone. Voisey leaves us with memories of happier times, and the reassurance that in spite of everything else, Frank’s story was really only ever about love. And that love endures.

Only About Love is a powerful story of familial love in all its complexity and permutations. It had me in tears at times, and touched me deeply. It’s a thoughtful and ultimately uplifting book.

*

Only About Love by Debbi Voisey is published by Fairlight Moderns, an imprint of Fairlight Books.

For more information about Debbi, see my interview with her HERE.