Nothing to See is a Bildungsroman set across three decades, showing us Peggy and Greta’s difficult path to recuperation and self-acceptance. We are introduced to them early in the process of rehabilitation. As with any new beginning, the two must learn how to live according to the new set of possibilities before them. First, they have to settle their identity. We learn this about them in relation to a set of clothes they acquire in rehab: ‘The tracksuits were fine but Peggy and Greta didn’t know who they were in them. Which was fine. Peggy and Greta didn’t know who they were in anything – not sober.’  Their past hovers dangerously over them as they encounter the places and people threatening to draw them back into the darkness they seem to have only just escaped. Peggy and Greta slowly learn how to avoid the temptation of slipping back into old habits and how to manage themselves in sobriety. Their everyday activities are limited at this stage: they go to recovery meetings and speak to their mentor, Diane, who guides them in their new life. They learn how to go shopping, how to cook, and how to find work. Eventually, they get a job sorting clothes at an op shop.

Pip Adam (photograph via Giramondo Publishing)

As Peggy and Greta’s life settles, they find contentment with the little bit of peace they have managed to create for themselves. Although they are always conscious of the risk of a relapse, it no longer seems as imminent or unavoidable as it did when they began their recovery. The precariousness of their situation is manifest when, in a moment of contentment, the pair become one again. Who are we left with, Peggy or Greta? It is impossible to tell, and we are drawn to constantly guess. They become Margaret, who, though now complete, cannot fully accept herself as an individual. The author emphasises the difficulty of navigating the question of identity via the discomfort felt by Margaret’s colleagues and friends when they encounter her as an individual. This in turn amplifies her own paradoxical lack of self-acceptance and understanding. Though unified, she feels more incomplete and alone than ever.

In the background of Peggy and Greta’s life, we are caught up in the whirlwind of the development of the internet and social media as the dominant forces in our lives. With support from government, they are able to gain a computer science degree and ultimately to find employment as content moderators for emerging social networks. They derive comfort sense of comfort from the analytic nature of the work and the focus it requires, though it draws them into dark corners of the web. Through the detachment from the ultimate subject of their work, technology provides a source of comfort. Online it does not matter much how one lives or whether the person behind a username is one individual or more, and the volume of work is enough to lose oneself.

Because of Peggy and Greta’s incessant search for relief, trauma is at the centre of Nothing to See. We encounter it through the protagonist(s) and their friends. There are two layers of trauma we never quite see. The first is what happened to the person who became Peggy and Greta during the nadir of their addiction. We are shown pieces of this, such as the psychological and sexual violence they are subjected to by the men they rely on for their everyday survival. Second, though, is what pushed them into the dark place in the first place. As they remark, drinking makes it ‘easy just to make everything blank, just to keep moving’. Alcohol was therefore a form of escape from whatever was haunting them. There is a sense in which sobriety created Peggy and Greta because the weight of the trauma they were carrying before was too much for a single individual. Sober, they are no longer able to hide from their grief and sadness, but must learn to live with it and to find a way of seeking normality, despite their psychological scars.

The novel is not without hope. It is, after all, a book about a fresh beginning. Nothing to See shows us that, while the past cannot be changed, and while we are subject to forces beyond us, there is peace to be found, even if it looks nothing like what we might expect.

Nothing to See is brilliantly written. Despite its difficult subject matter, it brings life and dignity to characters who feel they have none. As the author’s début outside of New Zealand, it brings us a strong and clear literary vision of a world dominated by forces outside of our control. Pip Adam shows us what it is to fall apart and the cost of being reconstituted.