This is a particularly sad, yet hopeful book. Gloria Don’t Speak by Lucy Apps is her debut novel, and it follows Gloria, a woman with a learning disability and a possible autism diagnosis. Although it is never explicitly stated exactly what Gloria’s condition is, one of the most remarkable things about her is that she does not speak, not because she cannot, but because, in her understanding of the world and communication, she only speaks when it is strictly necessary; the character goes through communication with selective mutism;  it is not a lack of comprehension of the words, but the way in which they are uttered. Apps allows us, through this novel, a glimpse into a life that is rarely represented in fiction, although this, I am happy to report, is changing: the life of someone who not only does not conform to social norms, but who, in many ways, cannot understand or participate in those norms in the same way as everyone else. Gloria exists outside many of the rules that govern ordinary social interaction, and the novel asks us to reconsider whether those rules are as natural or necessary as we assume.

The other main character of the book is Jack, who is older than Gloria and has a history of violence. He is someone who seems almost impossible to integrate into society because of the rage and class inequality that consume him. And yet, somehow, Gloria and Jack strike up a friendship. This is where Apps’ masterful writing really shines. The empathy with which she treats these characters is outstanding. Although we follow Gloria very closely as readers, Jack also comes to us with his full shades of grey. He is not a good man, and the book never pretends that he is. His violence has consequences, and his anger is not romanticised. But he can understand something about Gloria’s company that almost nobody else can. There is a recognition between them that does not require the usual social mechanisms of conversation. They can simply exist alongside one another.

That friendship is perhaps one of the most moving aspects of the novel, because it is not presented as a conventional friendship. There is no sense that Jack “fixes” Gloria or that Gloria somehow redeems Jack. Instead, they provide one another with something much simpler and much more fundamental: company. They recognise each other in ways that other people seem unable to. In a world where both characters are constantly measured against standards they cannot meet, their relationship becomes a small space where those expectations temporarily disappear.

After an act of violence, Jack goes to prison, and years pass in which Gloria struggles to come to terms with the time she spent with him, as well as the good memories she has of him. She is unable to make sense of what this human being represents to her. How can someone who gave her companionship also be someone who committed terrible acts? How can someone be both things at once? Again, compassion shines through. Gloria does not know how to make things right; she barely knows what “right” might look like. What she does know is what Jack means to her. She navigates the tension between expectation and understanding while fighting with her memory and her pain.

Something that really stayed with me is that the loneliness Gloria feels is universal. It is deeply human. It does not matter whether she can express that loneliness in the ways society expects her to; we recognise it because Apps has put something fundamental about the human experience in front of us. Gloria may not be able to conform to the rules through which most of us communicate, but her need for connection is completely recognisable. In fact, the novel perhaps suggests that we should be more suspicious of the ways in which we define communication and connection. Gloria does not speak, but she has an enormous interior life. She observes, remembers, feels, wants and grieves. Her silence does not mean an absence of thought or emotion.

Walking is fundamental to this book. Gloria doesn’t speak, but she walks nonstop. It is her favourite activity, except when it rains, and through her walking we get to see a London that tries to push beyond the brokers and millionaires: a London of broken families, poverty and, particularly, damaged young people who seem to be continually drawn towards failure. Through Gloria’s observation and movement, we are encouraged to develop our own compassion as readers. She explores spaces that other people simply pass through without noticing, and we are forced to look at those spaces with her. For example, the edges of the park where people sleep in the bushes or volunteers who try to clean the messes, places where the outsiders and insiders of society have to coexist. 

Nobody is particularly kind to Gloria. Someone robs her purse, she is physically assaulted by a kid who runs away from a crime scene, and of course, the police and state presence in the book refuse to take into account the way she communicates. There is a long list of other moments in which the world demonstrates just how little protection it offers her. And yet Gloria just wants to exist and comprehend existence. There is something incredibly powerful in that essence. Her existence does not need to be justified by productivity, achievement or conventional success. She simply wants to experience the world on her own terms, and perhaps that is a goal that more of us should be concerned with.

The walking also gives the novel a particular rhythm. Gloria is constantly moving, and that movement becomes a form of thinking, remembering and processing. She does not necessarily move towards a destination in the conventional sense. Instead, the act of walking itself becomes meaningful. London is simultaneously hostile and strangely accommodating: it contains violence, indifference and inequality, but it also gives Gloria the physical space to keep moving.

Institutions are another important element of the novel. Care homes and support groups all seem to fail, although Apps does not portray them as being staffed by inherently bad people. Instead, she does a great job of showing us how overwhelmed and overworked these systems are and how easily they fail when they are asked to care for people whose needs do not fit neatly into the structures available to them. The problem is not simply that Gloria has a learning disability or that Jack cannot hold a job and has anger management issues. The deeper problem is that the structure of society repeatedly fails its individuals.

There is the overworked mother who does not have the resources to properly care for her daughter with additional needs; the daughter who makes a friend she cannot fully manage; and the friend who, desperate not to feel lonely again, loses his temper. The situations surrounding these characters continually push them towards decisions with no turning back. Apps are particularly effective at showing how individual failures are often connected to much larger social failures. It is easy to look at a person like Jack and say that he is violent, or at Gloria and say that she needs care, but the novel asks us to look at everything that surrounds those labels. What happens when the systems designed to support people are themselves exhausted, underfunded or incapable of understanding them?

And yet, despite all of this, the novel is not entirely bleak. There is something hopeful in the simple fact that life continues. Not because everything has been fixed, and not because the characters have suddenly understood one another, but because carrying on is itself part of being human. Life goes on because it has to go on. There is a human pulsation to that idea that I found incredibly moving.

Something that I loved about this book, without giving away any spoilers, is that there is no big resolution. There is no neat conclusion because, again, life rarely provides one after conflict. The characters give what they can and reach where they can. They do not suddenly become different people because the story is coming to an end. Gloria continues to walk, and through that walking she becomes part of the city. She is able to do it on her own terms, but there is no cherry on top, no grand reconciliation and no shaking of hands.

Instead, there is the constant walking. And as readers, we have to accept that this is reality. This is how most stories and most lives will go: with no resolution. Sometimes there is only a nod on the street, a soft smile, a moment of recognition, and then one foot in front of the other.

I think that is ultimately what makes Gloria Don’t Speak such a sad but hopeful novel. It does not offer us the comfort of believing that everything can be repaired. Instead, it offers something quieter: the possibility that even when things cannot be repaired, life can still continue. People can still walk. They can still remember. They can still find moments of companionship, even in the most unexpected places. And perhaps there is something profoundly hopeful in that. The idea that existence does not need to be perfect, resolved or understood in order to be worth continuing.