The Knowing by Madeleine Ryan
“Camille spends a lot of time considering what it means to be an empowered woman. She’d really like to be one. She just can’t imagine the empowered version of herself. Sometimes she feels her when she touches Manny. Sometimes she senses her when she’s working with flowers. But, most of the time, it’s when Camille is wanting what she doesn’t have that she feels closest to who she’s meant to be.”
The second novel from Victoria-based writer, director and author, Madeleine Ryan, The Knowing (2025), was definitely a hotly anticipated read for me this year. I was a big fan of her debut, A Room Called Earth (2020), and The Knowing did not disappoint.
Set across one hot Melbourne summer day, we track Camille as she heads to work from the country-based home she shares with long-term boyfriend, Manny and their two dogs, into work – an Armadale-based florist. It’s Valentine’s Day, Camille has forgotten her phone, and she’s supposed to have her second meeting with her new clients – the first clients her boss, Holly, has allowed her to take responsibility for.
While the premise might seem simple, Ryan demonstrates how any average day in our life is rich with thought, feeling, insecurity and hopes for the future – and can lead to unexpected outcomes:
“Now Camille is thinking about time running out, and death, and all of those kangaroo carcasses by the road. She always gets a funny feeling in her iliopsoas when she and Manny are driving and they pass roadkill that’s been marked by the shire with that bright-pink spray-paint as if to remind every passerby that this is a perilous place.”
On the surface, Camille’s life seems as though it’s on track; she’s doing what she loves, working for prestigious florist, Holly, and has access to all the opportunity this should promise. Except she’s learning that those who reach the top aren’t always so keen for others to follow in their footsteps, a lesson she will learn even more firmly on this day:
“Asking Holly for anything is a ferocious trauma and there isn’t enough marijuana or ashwagandha on the planet to get Camille through it. She lives in a state of recovering from, anticipating, or inadvertently managing to activate conflict with Holly and then bending over backwards to try and diffuse it.”
Throughout this seemingly average day, told in short, snappy chapters that flit between the present moment and Camille’s memories, Camille reflects on what it is she yearns for in life and why, despite her efforts, she’s still unhappy. She feels a keen sense of responsibility for this unhappiness and the ways it impacts those she cares about most.
“The other night, Manny asked Camille why she’s still working at Florals and she got really angry, because she has no idea. Although instead of admitting this, she gave a melodramatic and drawn-out speech about how sorry she is that she’s not doing odd jobs around the house all day like he is. Sorry that she wants things. Sorry she’s working towards things. Things she feels strongly about. Even if she doesn’t know exactly what they are.”
What struck me the most about The Knowing was how brilliantly Ryan builds the narrative around Camille, subtly adding a new anxiety, concern, fear or moment of joy, as she goes about her day, so many of which are immediately recognisable. While these are distinctly attached to Camille and her experiences, Ryan taps into some core anxieties around work, relationships and purpose that many in their late twenties/early thirties go through, leaving me with many ‘ahhh, yes. I know that feeling’ moments. From period pain to managing menstrual cups, commuting and workplace gossip to life goals, rentals, shitty TV shows, the pressures of social media, ageing and botox; nothing is off limits as Camille navigates what is and isn’t contributing to her sense of self.
“Sometimes, Camille worries that she’ll have to become a tyrant in order to overcome tyranny.”
While the narrator’s unique voice and experiences in A Room Called Earth represented a neurodivergent perspective on everyday life and its challenges (Ryan has previously shared her own Autism diagnosis later in life), Camille’s perspective is perhaps better described as neurotypical. The pressures she feels about what she’s doing – and not doing – with her life are more conventional and mainstream.
The rise of the ‘sad-girl novel’ is something we’ve definitely noted in Australian literature in recent years, and while The Knowing certainly holds some of the hallmarks of this subgenre, I would argue it also diverges from it in brilliant ways. Camille is incredibly self-aware and when the moment calls for her to take solid action – to know what she needs to do – she does.
Her story concludes with the only accurate outcome that knowing brings: more unknowing.
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
