Consent

   Sara had refused the sherry her mother had offered her – though she wanted it – because it was sherry, and because it implied permission. The tiny glass of blood in her mother's hand looked good now, though.

I had read Annabel Lyon's The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl (semi-related books about Aristotle and his daughter Pythias) before I joined Goodreads, so I thought I kind of knew what I was in for with Consent. But this is something totally different – not historical fiction, and if I'm remembering them correctly, this is way more accessible – and while Consent doesn't feel as hefty as those earlier books, it's certainly relevant to today's world and gave me plenty to think about. A story about family and responsibility and the limits of what we can consent to, this finely written novel would be a great book club choice; there's just so much to discuss. I purposefully chose an opening quote that doesn't give away anything of the plot (while kind of riffing on the book's title, and certainly its cover), but everything that follows could be considered ever so slightly spoilery (but less so than the publisher's blurb; glad I didn't read that first), so: fair warning to anyone who'd like to go into this book cold, as I did. (Note: I read a digital ARC from NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

Consent is the story of two pairs of unrelated sisters, and in each pair, there is one sister who is considered “the responsible one” and who is expected to take care of the other. In one storyline, Sara is an academic, a professor of ethics, and although she has spent her adult life trying to distance herself from her family, when their mother dies, Sara finds herself solely responsible for her intellectually delayed younger sister, Mattie. And Sara is horrified to discover that in the time it took to bury their mother and get all of the details of Mattie's future care sorted out, Mattie has gone and married her mother's most recent handyman; a recovering drug addict with a long rap sheet:

   “I could have brought the police with me today. That would have been my right. It was recommended to me, in fact.”
   “Jesus.” He shook his head. “Why?”
   “Why? Because she has the capacity of a child. She can't consent to any of this, not legally. Not to marriage. Not to – ”

Although this Robert had been acting as a very sweet and respectful caregiver for Mattie (a medical exam confirms that she's still a virgin), Sara has the marriage annulled – because of course she did, even if it broke Mattie's heart. In the second storyline, Saskia and Jenny are twins: Saskia is (in the beginning) an academic, in grad school studying comparative literature, and is forever being asked by her family to rein in her more wild sister – a hard partying interior designer whose impulsivity disorder calls into question her own ability to consent to what she engages in. When Jenny is in a car accident, it is Saskia who stays at her hospital bedside as she starts to recover from a coma; Saskia holding an alphabet board while Jenny blinks out her end of a conversation:

   At first, Saskia's conversations with Jenny were frustrating. She had to learn not to try to finish words for her sister, to distinguish purposeful blinks from eye-clearing blinks, not to rush through the alphabet, not to ask her too many questions at once. Some days Jenny refused to cooperate, and in the hallways the nurses would whisper to her that Jenny was depressed. On those days, Saskia would hold up books and magazines until Jenny blinked her consent, and then she would read to her.

There are many parallels between the two stories (perfumes, fashion, addiction, French literature), but as the two pairs of sisters are from different generations and the bulk of their stories aren't happening at the same time, I was surprised when their paths do cross:

   “Do you ever wonder about consent?” Sara would ask, and Saskia would repeat the things she'd read about safe words and the psychology of the submissive. “But in the car, that text,” Sara would say and Saskia would shrug. What must Jenny have been thinking in that moment?
   “Do you think Mattie was happy with him?” Saskia asked. Sara looked at the bar; nodded at the bar.

Consent in a sexual relationship is the way we're most likely to use the term today (and is the way that it is most obviously used in this book), but consent is explored in other ways, too: To what can you consent while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and what responsibilities do you bear while so impaired? Why should family bonds force us to be responsible for others without our consent? Characters make presumptions (wrapping up purchases before the buyer has agreed to the sale), do things for another's “own good” (removing belongings that might be upsetting), manipulate, deceive, and take advantage; all without consent. All of this is churning behind the scenes, and in the foreground, a surprising (and surprisingly satisfying) narrative unspools to its inevitable conclusion. Unpredictable, smartly observed, and leaving me with so much to think about, what's not to like here?