‘Paradise tastes of Nothing,’ 

Here and Only Here, is a tale riddled with teenage angst, desperation, anxiety and the absolute terror of going to high school. Dabos perfectly packages the teenage experience into a novel, complete with apparent popularity, fake friends, embarrassing emotions, terrible toilet experiences, familiar rituals, riddles and rumour mills as well as the ‘rules’ every school seems to adhere to simultaneously. Whilst I have it on good authority that Dabos depicts French schools very well, the school experience described within the pages of Here and Only Here could be based on experiences in the UK, America, anywhere. With aspects reminiscent of my own time at school, I am almost certain the reader, regardless of background, might find something familiar in the walls of Here.

What is immediately apparent, is the language within Dabos work. It is quickly noticeable that it has been translated, and potentially some of the nuances may have been lost in the translation, causing some rather banal descriptions: 

“Yellow walls even yellower and green shutters even greener”

Unnecessary vulgar language: “Pube’s breadth”

And very questionable labels for the popular teens and those they lord over, akin to prison relationships:

“Ask the prince […] to put you with another bottom girl or a bottom guy”

But if we are able to move beyond these slight language challenges, the story explores the drama of school, utilising the macabre, magical realism and fantastical science fiction tools to portray the circular, repetitive and pretty unpleasant experiences of school. Focusing on four key and familiar occurrences: 

“Words leap out, in giant fluorescent graffiti. Disappearance. Murder. Revolution. Birth.”

Whilst these might appear extreme, don’t take this literally. Metaphorically, people disappear at school, parts of them disappear, they might be re-born as someone different, and a growing interest in authority and potentially fighting against that authority or fighting for one’s voice to be heard over the rest of the crowd.

“I see and I live, I’ve found what I was searching for. The blind spot.”

Dabos’ chapters are from the perspective of students (Iris, Madeliene, Guy, Pierre), a past pupil/current substitute teacher, and in the form of ‘The Top-Secret Club’s’ conversations, the club seems to be used as a tool to merely spoon for the reader important information. Through each chapter, we learn about the school, the students and the narratives that hold familiarity and a nostalgia for school days, without rose-tinted spectacles.

“It’s the walls. It’s always been them. They’re trying to swallow me up.”

Madeline and Iris have the most ‘literal’ experiences when trying to find their place Here, navigating complex emotions whilst trying to shake off past friends. Madeline becomes a ‘Guru’ who can help people with all sorts of problems. She believes she has been ‘Chosen’ and has another voice that is used to help people, exploring the undue main-character syndrome teenagers often experience, and the NEED to be needed/right. Iris has an obsessive desperation to blend in, to integrate into the crowd but not be the centre of attention. Whilst this appears to be her wish, subconsciously she feels invisible due to her overpopulated and changed home life (tonnes of half-siblings and a deceased father), thus her efforts to strive to be involved and integrated leave her feeling more and more invisible, until she actually disappears. 

“And I get it, no one can see me anymore.”

Whilst Dabos is exploring school drama, the circularity of events and the repetitive drama of things happening every year with magical realism, she also utilises the Science Fiction tool of a Novum, SCHMOIL.

“It knows and it doesn’t want us to know.”

A Novum is a term used in Science Fiction to describe a ‘new thing’ (novum; latin for New Thing) that is innovative and seems potentially scientifically plausible. SCHMOIL is described mainly as some sort of milky gross liquid that comes through the drains of the school every Thursday at 2.28pm, and this is when the more unusual and magical occurrences seem to happen. The simple conclusion to me is that Schmoil is some sort of drug / gas that reveals different things to those it infects – but maybe the reality of Schmoil is meant to be read differently by each reader, as we never truly learn what it is.

“To the end of the world, of course. The one that will occur on a Thursday, at 2:28pm here”

As the school terms come to an end, the book becomes increasingly more chaotic and dramatic, with vivid and violent scenes depicting the all-consuming essence that school can become. How should something happen at school it feels like the end of the world, the embarrassment makes you shrivel up and scream, and you think the agony and humiliation will never end.

“I speak. They laugh at each other. I speak. I don’t spare myself; I lay bare my own humiliations. They laugh at me. Our skin bleeds. Their laughter subsides. I speak. They groan and suffer and bleed. I speak. They beg me to shut up. I speak. The new me – the one who was waiting to be born, the one in gestation behind the capital letters – speaks. Louise speaks to me, too. We’re flayed alive.”

The book ends with a beginning, ready for a new year to start, and a new cycle to begin.

Here and Only Here is bizarre, brutal and bitter, with occasional cringey language and awkward occurrences. However, Dabos beautifully captures what it is to be a teenager. That horrible stage where you don’t know where to stand, how to stand, who to stand with, or whether standing is the right call in the first place – maybe we should sit down? Or lie down? Or curl up into a ball and pretend this isn’t happening? I would recommend, but expect YA style, and expect violence, because that is what you are going to get. 

Here and Only Here is available now, you can order your copy on Bookshop.org