‘Here in Avalon’ and the Loneliness of Passion (Book Review)
Tara Isabella Burton’s new book explores both the wonder and darker sides of the magic and beauty of immersive theatre
The first time I saw our beloved Sleep No More (November 1st, 2019, a day I’ll always recall), it was a celebration. I had been accepted into graduate school, and I was off to new and exciting horizons in medicine, far away from the drudgery of my corporate life. And of course, the show itself was a revelation, a music-box world where I was lavished with contact and attention. I remember how I described it to a friend; “Sleep No More feels like the reality of what you were promised life would be like when you were a child.” There’s mystery, romance, and intrigue, and above all else, a sense of care, that where you put your attention, and where there is attention on you, matters.
The next week, still buzzing with excitement, I was back in the office, when a neighboring office let us know that they had over ordered catering, and we were all invited to the ugly sweater party they were holding for the holidays. My coworker, not a friend, merely an acquaintance, asked me if I was going. “Not on my life”, I replied.
“Why?” He seemed confused. “You go when they have extra donuts.”
I explained the distaste I have for office christmas culture in general, the way the season tends to get me down, how ugly sweater parties once struck me as charming before Target had an ugly sweater aisle and now seemed merely another capitalist excess, how we were a small office and I feared being outnumbered in their large one.
“Wow,” he said, “I wish I cared about literally anything as much as you care about not going to this party.”
Here in Avalon is a book about the humiliation of that moment.
It’s also a book about the way art elevates us and destroys us, a book about how you can’t live on love and passion alone, but merely exist in their absence, and a book about how attention and care are, at the end of the day, the only things that really matter to people.
Rose, our main character, is ceaselessly practical. Her life is ordered, neat, and oriented towards growth. Her sister, Cecelia, is not, constantly jumping from passion to the next, always pursuing something that will make her heart sing. While they had the same bohemian upbringing in NYC, their lives have taken wildly different paths. When Cecelia reenters Rose’s life, it seems she’s finally willing to put her pursuits behind her, until she falls into the thrall of a mysterious theatre company, the titular Avalon Cabaret, and one day, disappears altogether. The deeper Rose goes trying to find, Cecelia, though, the more the Avalon Cabaret works its magic and picks at her vulnerabilities, illuminating the cracks in her seemingly perfect life.
Of course, to most of the people who would choose to read a magical-realist thriller about the power of immersive theatre, we can see the problems in Rose’s life right away. The precision with which Burton skewers the apathy and soullessness of corporate culture is breathtaking. The character of Caleb, Rose’s odious tech-bro fiance, is written with only the slightest bit of exaggeration, in a way that provokes both amused groans and genuine rage from the audience. Rose’s friends Lydia and Grant fare equally horribly/well, a group that seems intent to kill off their own last vestiges of humanity if only to blunt the pain of living in an increasingly inhuman society, to varying degrees of success. While ostensibly Rose’s allies, their judgment and lack of understanding creates a tense and alienating isolation for Rose to navigate. These plot threads of Rose’s daily life serve as a counterpoint to the wonder and intrigue of her encounters with the Avalon, as Rose’s encounters highlight her own desire to escape her life. Alongside the charm and propulsive plot of the book, the side-story of Rose’s social drama acts as a velvet wrapped mallet to the cruel indifference of modern life.
None of that would work without the contrast of the Avalon Cabaret, though. Describing a magic not entirely unlike immersive theatre, Burton keenly hones in on the way we crave attention and validation, and the way the best art makes us feel seen in a way that lets us transcend our circumstances. Her prose is lovely, weaving the spell of the Avalon as much for the reader as for the characters. When transformed by their experience, Burton’s characters hum with the shame and frustration of engaging with a society that can’t understand how art could have moved them so much, nor understand why they would want to be so moved. The trail to each show is also a delight, the Avalon giving its guests ARG-style clue trails to chase, taking inspiration from art and literature. New Yorkers will enjoy the way these clues give a tour of literary landmarks of the city.
Yet still, for how pro-art the book is, Cecelia is a train wreck. While sympathetic to her hungers for truth and beauty, Burton acknowledges how those hungers consume her life. It seems trite to point out the book’s calls for moderation, but the way the book elegantly uses the two sisters as a metaphor for the competing drives of modern life makes it feel less pat.
If the book has one fault, it’s a little bit tidy in the back end. All threads loop together, and all mysteries are closed. While in some books this would be a positive, this cleanliness removes some of the ambiguities that made the first two thirds of the book thrilling. In answers, there’s a lack of the possibility that questions allow. For a book that’s often about the need to believe, I felt slightly denied that opportunity, given the moderately acceptable consolation prize of the ability to know.
Ultimately, despite the unsustainability of Cecelia’s dreams or Rose’s reality, it’s care and attention that save the day. Care and attention for each other, but also for beauty, and the reality that every person holds their own tiny tragedy they need to have seen, and for the reality that something else is possible, that today is just as constructed as any show. It may be a lonely road, but Here in Avalon does an admirable job urging us to construct better tomorrows.
Here in Avalon; By Tara Isabella Burton; $28.99, hardback, available now
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