Singer-songwriter Donna Dunlop’s first novel, What She Can Remember reads more like a personal memoir than a work of fiction. Set in the mid- to late 1960s and written in both past and present tense, the book recollects a young woman’s first years away from home as she moves around downtown Toronto from one rooming house to the next, from one tedious clerical job to another, through a series of different boyfriends (including an older man who is her psychiatrist), and in and out of psychiatric institutions.

Under the surface of the prose lie deep and conflicting feelings that the narrator has for her father and mother. The young woman’s struggle to find her self-esteem, quit slashing her arms, and keep her hold on sanity is the driving force of the narrative. Ultimately, it’s the most interesting thing about the book.

Unfortunately, the prose reads like an early draft, reminiscent of the rambling journal entries of a confused and anguished teenager. Throughout, Dunlop veers off on tangents, at times neglecting to return to her original point. In the midst of this, characters are introduced yet never properly developed, and there is cryptic, cumbersome prose that just tries too hard. Some sections I had to read several times over and even then, I could not quite decipher them.

Still, Dunlop is a strong writer. There are vivid and original descriptions of rooms and objects; her eye for detail is especially fine tuned. The other strength of What She Can Remember lies in Dunlop’s ability to subtly evoke emotion, less by what the narrator remembers than by what she seems to have forgotten – by deep memories that smoulder just beneath the surface of her wandering recollections.