Hot Milk

The heroine of this novel, Sofia, travels with her mother Rose to a coastal Spanish town in order to consult an orthopaedic surgeon about the pain (or is it numbness?) that has resulted in the mother being mostly unable to walk for many years. The father is long since out of the picture, having moved back to his native Greece, married a woman the age of his own daughter, and started a new family. The relationship between mother and daughter is strained, to the point of abusiveness. It seems that, her mother having been under a disability for most of her life, Sofia has been forced to care for Rose in her father’s absence since childhood, and Rose has done everything she can to make it as difficult as possible.

Full disclosure: I read about 70% of this book between the hours of 3.00-5.30am, while being kept awake by some drunken karaoke next door. Most of the novel was a blur to me, but some of it I’m not sure would have been clearer at a more conventional hour. Is Rose genuinely suffering, or is she malingering? Is the doctor she consults a global authority or a snake oil salesman? The motivations of most of the characters are mysterious, the sources of tension buried in obscurity, and I’m totally at a loss to understand the title. “Hot Milk”? I don’t think the word “milk” is mentioned even once. Am I getting dumber? Is there some obvious explanation I’m missing?

Mercifully there is one metaphor so obvious that even I, sleep-deprived and irritated, can decipher, and that’s the chained-up dog next door that won’t stop barking and is being criminally neglected by its owner. Sofia continually resolves to unchain it, only to worry about being responsible for any subsequent violence it might exhibit. I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty sure the dog is a symbol for Sofia herself, mistreated and restrained by her social conscience. Who knows what she’ll be capable of if and when she lets herself off the leash?

Possibly this is a good novel. It has a dreamy quality to it, complex characters, unresolved mysteries, an edge of danger below the surface (jellyfish are also a recurring theme). Many of the characters, not just Sofia, seem to have become imprisoned by the lives they themselves have constructed. Read while awake and let me know if it passes muster.