Innominate by Naomi Pearce
‘Innominate’ derives from the Latin for nameless. It is also, in anatomy, the name for the the fused bones of the pelvis. Both meanings of this word, with all of their parallel connotations, are woven through Naomi Pearce’s novel of the same name. These meanings coalesce in a layered story that addresses the fluctuations in our perceived notions of history and fiction, the human and the non-human, the building and the body. Although its dual narrative seams follow the lives of London Fields residents, Innominate’s protagonist is a building: a warehouse of the type familiar, if not quotidian, to many who live or have lived in the capital.
Pearce chooses to level the playing field between human and non-human, merging the inanimate with the conscious through the two concurrent, yet temporally disparate threads of the story as they undulate and overlap. In 2017, Tam and Jane are the new owners of a flat in the renovated warehouse. Despite managing to claw their way onto the property ladder, their relationship is crumbling. Tam is depressed, Jane overworked, but both feel a lingering sense of disquiet that seems to loom larger than their relationship. In 1975, Connie is a caretaker for the artist studios that occupy the building. She is an artist herself, although her age, lack of formal training and uncomfortable role as de facto authority figure, sets her as an outsider within the artist community. In each timeline, the women in the novel are haunted by an uneasiness that seems to flow in and out of the building itself.
There is mystery, violence and tragedy at the heart of Innominate, which make for a compelling read. But this novel is much more than the sum of these parts. Pearce’s prose is slick and lean. Short, evocative sentences render a vivid picture of life in the building and its inhabitants. Metaphors for the living are imposed onto the architecture of the building with uncanny precision. Tam notices, one morning when alone in the flat, that ‘the windows catch voices like an ear’, Connie observes layers of wallpaper that seem to ‘creep towards the window like plants craning for light’. Floating, ghost-like amongst the narrative timelines are fragmentary lyrical descriptions of how bones are formed. There are clues here that lead us towards the story’s harrowing climax, but these bone-fragments also serve as a reminder of the thinness of the veil between the architecture of the body and the built environment.
Innominate is a meticulously researched novel, borne out by Pearce’s attention to historical detail and her ability to render acutely vivid characters. However, it is the sense of place, and the sensation of deep time, which elevates this novel into something eerie. Innominate recontextualises our relationship with the non-human, and the transience of both individual bodies and communities in urban space.