What does a more authentic life look like? This is the question that suddenly confronts Jeffrey Watson-Johnson, the protagonist of Micheal Winker’s second novel, Griefdogg. It follows his acclaimed debut, the experimental historical novel Grimmish – the first self-published novel to be shortlisted for the Miles Franklin.
Jeffrey lives with his wife Martine and their child Bern in Mildura. A hydrologist, his life is notable for its strict routines and orderly habits, and his strident involvement in local social and environmental causes. The bane of town councillors and his weekly tennis partner, whom he regularly defeats with his unadventurous and predictably effective play style, he is serious about his career, community and family, and his physical and mental health.
Review: Griefdogg – Michael Winkler (Text Publishing)
This quietly laudable existence is shaken by unexpected good fortune at the start of the novel. Jeffrey discovers his recently deceased aunt has left him an inheritance of just under two million dollars, a sum that can reasonably be expected to be “life-changing” for him and his family.
It provides the opportunity to divest from unimportant or tedious aspects of life, to focus on what is meaningful. Jeffrey’s cousin, Pam, who receives a similar amount, quickly embarks on this course with gusto: quitting her job, travelling, enjoying previously neglected cultural activities.
Jeffrey, however, is gripped by a different desire. Suddenly, all his labours, routines, and his professional and personal fixations feel meaningless; just forms of concealment, avoidance and distraction. He spontaneously quits his job, turns full control of his finances over to Martine and tells her he intends to live in the world without responsibilities or agency.
His life will be like something akin to a family pet, dedicated to simply and comfortably existing.
Life as confidence trick
Martine and Bern initially think Jeffery is joking, or suffering a breakdown, but eventually are forced to grudgingly accept how he has chosen to live. He spends his days sitting in their garden and floating aimlessly around the town, most often ending up on the banks of the Murray River. At nights, he retreats to his “box”, a small spare room where he sleeps on a single mattress.
True to his commitment to just exist without distraction, he forgoes books and television, regular exercise and activities, and tries to avoid serious conversation, finding himself compulsively spouting cringeworthy “Dad” jokes whenever he is approached.
While he is successful in divesting from his ordinary cares and responsibilities, it is less clear whether this new life will bring him happiness. His roving thoughts are perpetually drawn back to his former career and his knowledge of both the collapsing environment and the powerful but inaccessible flows of water, far below the ground.
He also becomes problematically and uncomfortably alert to the subterranean griefs people carry with them – losses and sadness they cannot fully understand or articulate. Though he tries to maintain his remove, he is inevitably swept back into the trials and miseries of ordinary life.
“To a large extent, life is a confidence trick,” says Jeffrey’s eulogist, early in the novel. The daily practice of living involves regularly attempting to convince others, and oneself, of the point, purpose and meaning of one’s actions. It requires us to maintain a futile belief in our own agency and control, and avoid awareness of the unseen tides and currents that determine our existence.
From the start, we know Jeffrey’s attempt to give up these suddenly exhausting pretences will end with his premature death.
Dangerous empathy
The novel is split between Jeffrey’s story and his eulogist’s attempts to make sense of it, to imbue Jeffrey’s purposefully meaningless life with some kind of meaning. The connection between Jeffrey and this unnamed character is never satisfyingly resolved. As the novel continues, his reflection on Jeffrey’s life starts to fall apart and contradict itself, exploring alternative possibilities and pathways.
But do the differences between them really matter? Even the most authentically lived life still ends in death.
Much like Winkler’s first book, Griefdogg is perplexing, philosophical, and difficult to categorise. The premise, at times, feels like absurdist comedy, but the prose is often muted, quiet, melancholic. While frequently humorous, the novel treats Jeffrey’s decisions seriously, exploring their consequences and ramifications, both good and bad.
Similarly, while expressing different degrees of bemusement and frustration, the characters who surround Jeffrey also generally come to treat him and his way of life seriously. His disavowal of the pretences he no longer has the need nor inclination to maintain subtly encourages them to reflect on their own lives and values.
And living like a pet, without any greater goals, aspirations or agenda, he can be a surprising source of comfort.
This comes at a cost to Jeffrey, however. Like a well attuned pet, he becomes uncannily alert to the emotions of the people around him. This eventually evolves into the capacity to experience it on their behalf: to cathartically take their grief into himself, a swelling river of sorrow that will inevitably subsume him.
In attempting to pare himself back to an essential core, setting aside ordinary cares and distracting preoccupations, he eventually leaves himself open to a dangerous, all-consuming empathy.
Authenticity and performance
The significance of this trajectory isn’t entirely clear in Griefdogg. Like many of the novel’s events, episodes and scenarios, it doesn’t cohere or conclude in any neatly comprehensible meaning. Indeed, the novel’s shifting perspectives and speculative detours work to remind the reader that the attempt to impose or create meaning in life is often fictional, and easily eroded when subject to scrutiny.
Griefdogg is a quietly provocative novel, but not a bleak one. There is an endearing quality to Jeffrey’s daily routines and awkward interactions, as he attempts to determine exactly what it means to be simply present in the world without all the layers of performance that structure ordinary life – and without giving in to the temptation to shape it.
His story ultimately reveals, in ways both comic and tragic, that authenticity itself is no less fraught than pretence. Inevitably, it is still shaped by forces beyond his control.