What I’d Rather Not Think About

"This is Posthuma’s second novel, her first to be translated into English. To give you a thumbnail description, it’s about a young woman whose twin brother—45 minutes her senior—is suicidal. She has to deal with his death at 35. It’s written in short sketches. It’s smart, well-observed, powerful, very controlled. It has lots of substance despite what on the surface appears to be a slim narrative. Without being showy, it’s impressively accomplished. What I’d Rather Not Think About is a deeply moving story, an exploration of grief through the surviving twin’s efforts to understand and come to terms with the loss of her brother, examining the profound complexities of familial bonds. She loved her twin, but she’s angry with him for abandoning her. In these brief, precise vignettes, the sister looks back on their childhood and describes their adult lives, how her brother tried to find happiness. She navigates this with sensitivity, formal inventiveness, and real authenticity, creating a narrative that is both insightful and tender. This tragedy is inflected with unexpected humour and offers a multifaceted look at the search for meaning in the aftermath of suicide. As one of my fellow jurors put it, this book is viscerally true about how grief works. At the same time, she makes you feel there is more hope than there is, because of the wit and how the story is written—in fragments, which enables Posthuma to capture so many different angles on their relationship. When one of these sketches is very sad, the next might catapult you into another place or time. She says: “I thought about all the love we have inside us, and how only a shred of that reaches the people we care about.” I think that captures the kind of poignancy, but also the resilience."