There are some novels so searingly precise in their ability to capture a certain moment or experience that you have to stop every few pages to send another perfect quote to your group chat. Halle Butler’s latest, Banal Nightmare, is one such book ... Will have many millennials intently nodding along to Butler’s clever insights. While not necessarily the first in the category of the millennial midlife novel, Banal Nightmare may be one of the most essential.
Ambitious ... Butler pushes her darkly humorous, mean-spirited worldview to its limits ... There’s cringeworthy, sometimes triggering material in Banal Nightmare, but it is also quite funny.
The true object of Butler’s sophisticated, ambivalent satire may be millennial fiction’s tendency to celebrate the liberatory potential of sincere self-narration and downplay economic advantage.
Butler is a master at constructing a detailed social hierarchy of educated women, and this novel centers those tensions at its heart ... The disconnect of the internal and external realities is so stark that I laughed out loud. Butler’s observance of this dissonance makes her successful in writing about horrific things in a way that is absurd to the point of comedy, just on the edge of satire.
I was far from disappointed ... One of the most admirable aspects of Banal Nightmare is the sheer scope of characterization that Butler brings the reader into. We follow nearly eight characters in depth ... Halle Butler brings together stunning prose, the Midwest, and a group of compellingly original characters to create what is truly, in the best way possible, a banal nightmare.
The novel lives up to its name in a variety of ways, none of which make for a very pleasant reading experience—though that’s never seemed to be Butler’s goal ... What keeps Banal Nightmare nailed to reality is the fact that, underneath all of this emotional turmoil, we eventually learn that Moddie has suffered real, serious harm.
Butler’s narrative voice can also be comedic with a nihilist touch. Daring readers will eagerly turn the page to see their own unspeakable thoughts exposed by Butler.
Cutting ... For all of Moddie’s anarchic energies, her character arc feels conventional, though it serves as a vehicle for Butler’s laser-sighted satire of millennial conformity. This sharply funny novel pulls no punches.
