There are some acts of rebellion and protest that are overt, and visible. They are loud, and they are obvious. And then there are others that are more covert, like self-care, community building, and crafting, that are equally important. The very act of having adult friends, not just coworkers you go for a drink with after work, but long-term friends, who you turn to in times of struggle, is counter to our individualistic capitalist culture. In Clutch by Emily Nemens, she examines the many ways five women clutch one another in crisis, and also how that act changes their approach to the world and culture around them. This is how their friendship, though flawed and caked in contemporary culture, defines rebellion.
Nemens’s five main characters are introduced with basic information in the opening page of the novel: name, age, job, location, marital status, children. Between the protagonists Reba, Bella, Hillary, Carson and Gregg, there are four husbands, five children (all boys), and eight careers. As the novel opens, they embark, for the first time in years, on a weekend trip together, unaware that the month following this trip will be among the toughest of their lives. The ways in which the group will support one another through their upcoming struggles defines how friendship can stand in direct rebellion to societal status quo.
Though it is clear these women don’t wish their friendship hindered by their physical distance from each other, it’s also clear that this is an unavoidable reality. Lack of physical proximity is navigated, but is seen falling short. In a dramatic argument, a crying Reba says, “I just want my friend back for, like, one day… I want living, breathing humans.” There are references throughout the novel to the pandemic, and how that further separated them from the early days of their friendship when they were living together in a dorm, listening to Brittany Spears. Nemens’s exploration of community via this friend group stands in stark contrast to the other characters surrounding them who neither have significant friends nor an understanding of the importance of this community to these women.
Bella, in a crisis, finds herself without phone access for an extended period, and her husband (in a moment emblematic of our isolated culture), misreads the situation and tells her friends what Bella really needs is space. It is clear to Bella, as well as to the reader, that her community is the only thing that will heal her. Her husband, devoid of close friends, can’t fathom the bond. Similarly, when Gregg ends up in her own crisis, the other four friends push past bodyguards and Gregg’s husband to provide support that others don’t even realize she needs. At every turn these five women find space to heal within their friendships; they find the community sustaining each of them, within each other.
Nemens’s intelligent, conversational tone (including her frequent use of parentheses to side bar topics or fill in historic information) combined with her very clear understanding of the phenomenon of decades-long female friendships, make this novel smart, stark and at times shocking. The characters in Clutch are facing addiction, mental health struggles, unwanted pregnancy, financial issues, infertility, and any number of other trigger-worthy life events all too familiar to contemporary American culture. Although the novel only covers a short period of time the reader experiences the past and future through flashbacks and craftily written paragraphs by an omniscient narrator about what is ahead in these women’s lives.
The book’s exploration of time is prominent throughout, much as it is for many of us hitting our forties. Not merely how time passes, but also what we prioritize spending our time on. When the novel opens the author writes about the women leaving each other emotional voice messages or rants, “Sometimes the two modes of timekeeping decoupled completely, the milliseconds of the iPhone voice recorder staying steady even as one’s life fell apart in slower motion.” Later on in the novel, during a particularly dark plot point, she writes, “That was time for you—a real cocksucker, so keen to giveth and taketh away.” This thread continues throughout— the examination of how time passes and how that passage impacts our perception of events (and vice versa) … and how inevitable time is. After all, she writes, “No one could stop the hands of time from blithely swinging around the clock face.”
Alongside the theme of time, Nemens also examines capitalism and contemporary society’s impact on our planet. Gregg’s realization of the hypocrisy of her lobbying state legislature for increased environmental protections while her husband’s rocket ship obsession damages entire ecosystems, ignites an internal struggle within her as she questions the validity of how she spends her time. There is also a lot of male bad behavior. Besides not being tuned into the needs of their wives, one husband breaks the rules of his marriage, while another perpetrates unspeakable cruelty towards his wife… culminating in a moment that caused me to audibly gasp.
In addition to the mistreatment these women endure from their husbands, however, is the mistreatment of others (almost entirely by exclusion) these five friends exhibit. Although I rooted for their friendship, it feels important to note their exclusion of their sixth friend. This friend was rejected from their friend circle because she was overly emotive during a breakup years earlier. For five friends who demonstrate supportive interdependence during each other’s emotional events, it’s perplexing they rejected a close member of their original circle for being too emotional, or “cringe.”
Further perplexing is the absence in this novel, otherwise fluent as it is in contemporary culture, of any mention of the LGBTQIA+ community! I find it hard to believe that these women, (including one who is in an openly polyamorous marriage), have no queer people in their lives in the 21st century. Community is essential in building an antifascist world, and an equitable, healthy society. But does this form of community necessitate annexing outsiders to form inclusivity?
Most notable for me in reading this novel, though, was the very authentic ways these women relate to one another. Yes, they are best friends. Yes, they talk regularly (primarily in a group chat using lots of emojis, because of course they do, this is 2023). But they also hide things from one another. Sometimes in order to protect one another’s feelings, sometimes out of shame. They go days without speaking because life is busy, work is busy, children are busy, but when one of them is in trouble they all find ways to drop what they’re busy with and show up for one another. Nemens isn’t representing a fictional ideal of what friendship should be. Instead, she shines a light on what adult friendship and community between women really aspires to be. In doing so, this book suggests that by embracing this form of deep community, perhaps our friendships can free us from the worst aspects of contemporary culture.
