'2,000 ft above worry level' by Eamonn Marra

Eamonn Marra first caught my attention with a brilliant essay on The Spinoff, titled ‘everybody says you should ask for help, but what happens when you do? Wow. Honest, shocking, and memorably well written.

My next encounter with Eamonn Marra was at the 2020 Nelson Pukapuka talks. He was in conversation with Ro Cambridge, facilitator, and Lil O’Brien, talking about the balance between tragedy and comedy in real life.

Depression is not funny, nor is being rejected by your parents for being gay. How do you connect to the reader, draw attention to a challenging topic through comedy?

The conversation inspired me sufficiently to purchase both books; see my review of Lil O’Brien’s ‘Not that I’d kiss a girl’.

Comedy and I are not on good terms. Comedians often talk fast, which is difficult with my shabby hearing. Comedy is too often at the expense of other people. It’s easy to laugh about others, but, as I’d been the butt of other people’s jokes as a child too often, I just don’t like it.

Eamonn Marra pokes fun at himself. With dry humour he describes how depression looks for him. The withdrawal from the world, into a dark room. Shutting out his flatmates and relating to characters on the internet. Obsession. The refusal to address real life challenges of increasing debt and the inability to address those challenges. Later in the book he writes about his desire to get out of the mess, and the challenges that creates. Unable to pay rent he moves in with his mother, painting a fence instead of paying rent. His quiet hope of connection fails - his mother posts about her son on the internet yet is unavailable for a conversation. Any conversation, not just a meaningful connection..

Each of the short chapters details one aspect of his depression, and what lies beneath that often used, sometimes misused word. He challenges and provokes - the opening essay is about internet sex. He takes us to the dark sad places of the internet, and into his mind how he experiences them. He writes about his food habits. I’d be depressed too if I had to survive on his chosen diet. He writes about his obsession with a wart on his hand, and how he deals with it. In all detail, which is pain inducing just reading it, and gross.

Eamonn Marra can write - detail, detail, detail, his writing skills make the unpalatable subject matter entertaining. The book deserves its place on the long list of the 2021 Ockham book awards - in the fiction category, as while he’s mining his experience he assures that the content of this book is fiction.

This book made me cringe. It made me laugh. It provoked new ways of thinking. It stays in my mind months after I finished reading it. Yes, highly recommended.

Eamonn Marra was interviewed on Radio NZ. He decided to move on from mining his depression for his art - I’m looking forward to his next book; I wonder what the topic will be?