Deborah Levy’s 2016 Booker shortlisted novel Hot Milk is about Sofia Papastergiadis, a 25-or-so-year-old anthropologist-cum-barista, and her mother Rose, who travel to Almeria in Spain to attend a clinic in search of a diagnosis and treatment for Rose’s mysterious paralysis of her legs.
To attend this clinic, run by Gomez, a US-trained doctor with extremely unconventional treatment methods, and Julietta, his daughter, the nurse-sunshine, Rose has mortgaged the last of her assets—the small London house—and all of her savings. Upon arriving at the beach-clad town, where jellyfish—“Medusas”—are almost always on a stinging spree, Sofia and Rose rent a house near the beach in Almeria.
But Levy’s Hot Milk is not just about the diagnosis and treatment. It opens us up to multiple worlds, where Sofia, the protagonist, shows us how her life has been, to say the least, miserable. She began her PhD in anthropology, only to leave it midway and work as a barista in London. At night, she would use the storeroom as her luxurious apartment. In it, she would scribble Margaret Mead’s sentences.
And soon, she opens us up to the study of anthropology. Everywhere she went, Sofia looked for subjects to study as an anthropologist. And most of all, she still depended on her mother, and her mother on her. So much so that she would limp just as her mother limped, holding her. But soon, and slowly, Sofia’s disappointments would be supplemented in these pages—and her hope, with it.
Sofia becomes Zoffie when she meets Ingrid, who is dating Matthew. Ingrid worked in a tailor shop close by. And with her thick German accent, calling Sofia Zoffie, Ingrid enters into a steamy affair (?), with every once in a while, kisses on the beach. And, when her boyfriend would call her by phone, she would say, “I’m on the beach, Matty. Can you hear the sea?”
And, with it, the love and want for Ingrid, who was always toxic—and often always giving mixed signals—and kisses other guys along. In these pages, Sofia spends so much time with Ingrid semi-naked, on the beach, in the kitchen, at cafes, and even around horses, for some reason.
Her father had abandoned her and Rose when Sofia was just 14, for a much younger girl, who is just four years older than Sofia, and with whom he has a baby daughter. And unfortunately, for her, she has always felt like a caregiver of Rose, who has suffered from this mysterious paralysis since she was really young. Rose, however, has internalised her supposed disease to such an extent that she manifests it. So, Dr Gomez is their final hope of sorts.
This one time, he takes Sofia and Rose on a luncheon and lets stray cats scratch Rose’s foot to see if they are really numb. However, towards the end of this story, Gomez is tired too. He adds: “It’s the vitality she puts into not walking that concerns me”. At last, he is unable to find a cure for Rose, and refunds part of the costs.
As a PhD student in politics myself, I was left wondering, with no cure for her mother’s legs, will she ever be able to go to the US and complete her anthropology PhD? This is odd, haha. I related so much to Sofia.
It was COVID-19 in 2020. I was almost 25. And no job and too much family dependence. Their dependence was on my ability to earn some money and clear out all that unending debt, and I on their generosity in continuing to support me. COVID-19 and a quarterlife crisis—worst of all, I suppose. And in that, I didn’t even have the skills to be a barista. And, above all, a desire to read and write, once again. And add to this the vulnerability that comes with a certain age. With Sofia, Levy exposes it.
What surprised me the most about Levy’s Hot Milk is just how much has been so meticulously discussed in these few pages. And just how well it is written. From the first page to the end, I felt immense joy while reading this book. Every sentence is crafted to sound clear and coherent. Every paragraph is structured to evoke a range of emotions, including joy, sorrow, and a sense of relatedness.
Deborah Levy’s writing is enviable in its elegance. Just as a Medusa sting, whose physical pain Sofia came to empathise with when compared to Ingrid’s behaviour, Hot Milk is unsettling even as you finish reading the last sentence. Perhaps, this quote captures the essence the best: “I want to get away from the kinship structures that are supposed to hold me together. To mess up the story I have been told about myself. To hold the story upside down by its tail”.