The Young Geriatric by Elizabeth Bryer

There are writers and then there are writers.

I put the books I read into three categories.

There are the books I like and probably won’t read again.

Then there are the books I will reread because I want to figure out how the writer did it i.e. achieved a particular effect through structure and language.

And then there are the books I read and want to study because they have done something incredible with language, they have expanded the possibilities of sentences and styling, and there’s an aha moment where I realise that’s how you do that.

The Young Geriatric by Elizabeth Bryer belongs to this third category. Elizabeth knows language. She hears language, and she is so precise and exact with how she uses languages. There are so many instances in this tiny perfect novel where I want to write out her sentences to remind myself of how language can be expanded.

I have not read a book that has excited me as much as The Young Geriatric for a long, long time. The language is truly a marvel and this novel is flawless. I do sometimes read books where the language is beautiful combinations of words but ultimately lifeless. This book is not like that. The writing is exquisite and I am so in awe of this book.

It seems rude to immediately finish a book by a writer and then be thinking when is their next book coming out? It’s rude because it takes so long to write a novel and to edit it and to go through all the processes to put that book out in the world.

The Young Geriatric will not be out till December, 2026. I am very fond of tiny books and they are the ones I tend to reread. Plus they’re easy to carry everywhere. I can’t wait to talk to people about this novel by the wonderful Elizabeth Bryer. She spoke about translating The Trial of Anna Thalberg in This Changes Everything. In another interview, Elizabeth said that translation is a close form of reading and I do think her command of language is next level!!! May it find many devoted readers in the world!