In the days when the world began to open up again after the COVID lockdown, a new stage of anxiety and trepidation took hold. People felt raw and craved connection, but they were still afraid of what those connections might bring. Gillian Linden’s thoughtful debut novel explores relationships and the return to the mundane as the pandemic crisis abates yet lingers. NEGATIVE SPACE offers up a week in the life of a part-time literature teacher at a tony New York City private school and how she wrestles with a brief glimpse of what she instinctively feels is an inappropriate interaction between a student and a teacher.

"NEGATIVE SPACE is smart, succinct and focused.... Linden gives readers plenty to ponder as she reflects a world in recovery and the steady march of everyday life."

Linden’s unnamed protagonist is a teacher in a changed world. Some of her students are still attending classes on Zoom, and the technology remains clunky. But it is a moment of intimacy between a teacher named Jeremy and a young high schooler named Olivia that reminds her that some pre-pandemic familiarities are less than healthy and good. The teacher, who considers Jeremy a work friend, brings her concerns to the administration. But they question what she saw: Did Jeremy nudge Olivia or nuzzle her? Or did he just accidentally bump his head against hers?

Olivia’s sensational family background seems of more general interest to the school staff than the possibility that she may have been exploited or harmed by Jeremy. The teacher turns the moment she witnesses, a fairly quick sight that occurred on her hunt for a class set of Kafka texts, over and over again. This is the thread of the novel, tightened and loosened as her week goes on and after that week moves into the past.

At home, even with the Jeremy-Olivia moment on her mind, the teacher is occupied with prosaic domestic tasks and responsibilities. Her two young children, Jane and Lewis, demand attention both physical and mental. Her husband, Nicholas, continues to work from home, paralleling the Zoom interactions she has with her students. Home is both chaotic and dull; our main character seems to be just going through the motions.

This feeling of disconnection permeates NEGATIVE SPACE, and the title --- referring to a student literary magazine --- is apt. Even Linden’s prose has a coldness and distance to it. The novel is slim and descriptive, a slice of life rather than an exploration of feeling or meaning or an action-driven plot. Many readers will be intrigued by or drawn to the inscrutable teacher as she navigates a world that is familiar in its recent and often subtle alterations. Others may find the stoniness off-putting. Jane and Lewis are particularly interesting. Are they worldly and precocious or perhaps the products of the isolation and tensions of the lockdown? Their language is rich and curious, and sometimes strange, a contrast to the reserve and restraint of the adults.

NEGATIVE SPACE is smart, succinct and focused. There is not a lot of depth or detail, but Linden gives readers plenty to ponder as she reflects a world in recovery and the steady march of everyday life.