Once More, with Feeling

By: Sophie McCreesh

Narrated by: Victoria Carr

Calling to mind smart, deadpan, and unrepentant novels such as The New Me and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Sophie McCreesh's distinctive and arresting debut novel is about a young woman veering toward self-destruction.

Once More, with Feeling follows Jane, an artist navigating her closest relationships while fixating on her own perceived failures and self-imposed isolation. When Jane receives a student grant to attend a workshop in London, England, she sees the opportunity to leave her tedious life behind and start anew, bringing along her new friend Kitty, who Jane will not admit she has little in common with other than a shared appreciation for boxed wine and various other drugs.

In London, Jane struggles to improve both her craft and her mindset while Kitty thrives, and a once exciting trip abroad transforms the already uneven dynamic of their friendship, leaving Jane feeling more withdrawn than ever. As her increasingly destructive behavior gets in the way of her artistic ambitions, her most important relationships - those with Kitty, her absent lover Richard, and a discredited therapist named Anna - begin to deteriorate as Jane starts to examine her growing dependence on substances.

Darkly funny, piercing, and tender, Once More, with Feeling is a portrait of a detached young woman trapped in the perils of self-loathing and addiction, who is searching for originality in an age of profound social disconnection and anxiety.

©2021 Sophie McCreesh (P)2021 Anchor Canada

Critic reviews

"McCreesh has a wonderfully dark sense of humour and she perfectly captures the struggle of young adulthood, amped up through addiction. . . . A great character portrait and Jane truly becomes someone you can care about." —Winnipeg Free Press

"Sophie McCreesh has written an understated and brilliant work that explores how for young women being ambitious can be terrifying and asking for what they need shameful. . . . Jane is a wondrous character whose terrible life choices are both fascinating and heartbreakingly tender. Although no one around her can seem to love her, the reader most certainly does." —Heather O'Neill, award-winning author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel

"Once More, With Feeling is an unflinching look into substance abuse, loneliness, vanity, and the follies of youth. . . . [It] pairs the ennui of literary realism with the hedonism of a rock memoir." —Jean Marc Ah-Sen, Maisonneuve