In her 2017 debut, How to Be Human, Paula Cocozza’s female protagonist was obsessed with a fox. In Speak to Me, it’s a more identifiable fixation – a case full of letters. Susan, a librarian, is fed up with her husband, Kurt, staring at his smartphone, which she nicknames Wendy. Their marriage, she concludes, has become “a modern version of a long-distance relationship”. Her twin boys also ignore her – preferring gaming to bedtime chats. In despair, Susan wrecks Kurt’s phone (three times) and, spiralling downwards, starts to make visits to their former home in London.
Susan’s unmooring began three years earlier when the family moved to an unfinished suburban estate in Berkshire. Initially there’s humour in the descriptions of domestic claustrophobia: The house designs are “named after dukedoms” and they’ve bought the “prestigious” Beaufort model: a soulless affair with “soft-close kitchen cupboards” and a “vast three-door closet in the hall”.
