The Book of Form and Emptiness

Benny begins wearing Kenji’s headphones as often as possible to drown out the voices. He becomes increasingly anxious as the voices intensify out of an excitement at being heard. One day in school, Benny falls asleep and his teacher sends him to the nurse. The nurse assumes that Benny is spending too much time on the internet or playing video games to get a decent night’s sleep. She sends him back to the classroom. There, Benny witnesses a bird fly into the classroom’s window. The window cries out, prompting Benny to get up and pound on the glass in an attempt to communicate with the window.

Benny is sent to the principal. He explains that he felt bad for the glass but does not know how to interpret their feelings for people. The Book explains that human language is often faulty, and miscommunications are common: Books are halfway between humans and objects, able to convey information without being alive.

Annabelle takes Benny to a child psychiatrist, Dr. Melanie. There, Benny hears the voices of the toys kept in the psychiatrist’s office. They speak of the pain and suffering experienced by the children who play with them. Annabelle worries about their insurance coverage as her benefits have been downgraded. Dr. Melanie diagnoses Benny with ADHD and prescribes him Ritalin. Annabelle promises Benny a trip to the library, and they leave the office.

The Book switches to narrating in third person from Dr. Melanie’s point of view. She writes a short post-session note for Benny though she wishes she could write a more in-depth evaluative narrative; she does not have the time, nor are such narratives typical of her profession any longer. She attempts to meditate before her next session but cannot relax. Though she sincerely wants to help each child, Dr. Melanie has a hard time relaxing properly and feels restrained with her clients.

Benny has loved the public library since he was a baby. Annabelle would often take him to the Multicultural Children’s Corner for story time, where he would sit underneath the librarian Cory’s stool and listen. When Cory was assigned to a different task in the library and a new librarian took over story time, Benny wasn’t as comfortable sitting underneath the stool and joined the other children in the circle.

Benny remembers listening to Cory. From underneath her stool, the stories she read sounded “like they were coming from all around” (87). He believes this is why he loves visiting the library. He feels guilty about being the reason Annabelle gave up her pursuit of library studies.

Benny and Annabelle have a fight when they return from the library. He notices Tidy Magic on the kitchen table and throws it at Annabelle out of frustration for the growing piles of clutter in their home. He makes her cry by suggesting that she needs to clean up her life as well.

Annabelle begins reading Tidy Magic, and the Book incorporates whole paragraphs of it into the text. Tidy Magic is for people who need to de-clutter their homes as a way to change their lives. The author, Aikon, writes that she once defined her life through her material possessions until she began practicing Zen Buddhism.

Annabelle is excited. The coincidence of Tidy Magic coming into her possession paired with the fact that Kenji was briefly a Zen Buddhist monk makes her believe that Kenji’s spirit is behind the book’s entry into her life. Furthermore, Kenji started playing jazz while living at the Zen monastery. Annabelle draws a romantic connection between Zen Buddhism, jazz, and Tidy Magic.

The Book explains that all books share a collective identity similar to the mycelium network of fungi. They describe their pronouns as “we, our, us” (94) to emphasize how they are connected to every other book past, present, and future.

Benny is in class working on a project on climate change. He hears the voices of the scissors he is using, which urge him to stab his teacher Ms. Pauley. Benny struggles against the voice, but he is unable to suppress it completely. Instead of stabbing his teacher, Benny stabs himself in the thigh. Benny is taken to the emergency room and receives stitches. He is brought to Dr. Melanie to discuss what compelled him to self-harm. Benny confides in her that he could hear the voice of the scissors; though he couldn’t precisely make out the words (they sounded like a dialect of Chinese to him), he understood what the scissors wanted. Dr. Melanie shows Benny the scissors and the engraving on the blades that reads “Made in China,” and Benny yells back that the scissors speak the language of the people that made them.

This misunderstanding continues over the course of Benny’s next sessions with Dr. Melanie, who attempts to explain the nature of sound and how it cannot be produced by inanimate objects. Dr. Melanie diagnoses Benny with schizoaffective disorder and prescribes him new medications. During these sessions, Annabelle waits in the waiting room. She has received news from her employer that her position will soon be phased out. Dr. Melanie suggests that they admit Benny to the Pediatric Psychiatry Unit, or “Pedipsy,” at the hospital. To ensure she can pay for Benny’s treatment, Annabelle calls her supervisor and begs them to consider retraining her for another position. She soon receives notice that she will be kept on at the company. Benny is relieved and looks forward to staying in Pedipsy as the voices he hears have become increasingly unmanageable.

When Annabelle admits Benny to Pedipsy, she is overcome with feelings of “defeat and failure” (109) at her son’s need to be institutionalized. On the bus on the way there, Benny and Annabelle sit across from an old man in a wheelchair, whom Benny believes is hearing voices. The man is Slavoj, a houseless poet living in the city. Benny admits to Annabelle that he often sees Slavoj on the bus and that he sometimes tries to speak to Benny about the voices of things. Benny is frightened that he will someday become like Slavoj.

Annabelle attempts “to maintain a front of cheerful confidence” (112) as she says goodbye to Benny and arranges with her job to deliver a new workstation to their home. On the way home, she stops at a thrift store to buy something to make herself feel better. She finds a snow globe with a sea turtle inside. After buying it, she puts it in the living room in anticipation of using it to decorate her new workstation.

Benny spends the last two weeks of middle school in Pedipsy. His roommate, Mackson, is an older teenager who doesn’t often speak to Benny. Overall, Benny is surprised to find that most of the kids there seem normal, until group therapy starts, and they have to share their stories. Benny enjoys the structured days and cleanliness of Pedipsy because “there were fewer voices here, as if the walls and ceilings and floors had been wiped clean of the residual suffering” (115) found in ordinary homes.

During a session with an art therapist, Benny notices an older teenage girl cutting slips of paper. Benny overhears the therapist calling her Alice and becomes intrigued by her art project. Later that day, Benny notices Alice passing out slips of paper to other residents; he finds one in his front pocket that instructs him to put his shoe on the table and listen to it. Benny takes these instructions seriously and does as the paper says that night, but he doesn’t hear a response from his shoe.

At breakfast, Benny approaches the table of older teenagers that includes Alice and Mackson. He asks Alice what she means by passing out such instructions, to which Alice merely responds that it is a “thought experiment.” Dr. Melanie and the other supervisors realize that Alice is passing out these slips of paper so they gather them and throw them in the trash. When everyone else is distracted, Benny retrieves some of the papers. He later learns from Mackson that Alice was phased out of Pedipsy and into the adult ward. 

Because Benny is in Pedipsy when his middle school graduation takes place, Annabelle decorates their home with graduation memorabilia when Benny is discharged. Annabelle goes through a mock graduation ceremony for Benny though he is resentful of her attempts to connect with him. She gifts him nice clothes to wear to dinner for their celebration, but Benny is too tired to go.

Annabelle shows him her new workstation in the living room. She is now working full-time again and has regained their health benefits. To make room for this workstation, Annabelle cleaned up much of the clutter in the living room, put it in trash bags, and put the bags in Benny’s room. When Benny goes upstairs to relax, he becomes angry and yells: “’There’s no space for me in this house!’” (128). Benny notices how upset Annabelle is and calms down using coping mechanisms he learned in group therapy. He follows a breath exercise until his emotions feel balanced again. He looks for the Coping Card he made in therapy, but instead finds it replaced with a slip of paper from Alice that instructs him to go to the library.