Reading resident Yannick Murphy’s new novel began as a sprouted seed — the short story of the same title, “Things That Are Funny on a Submarine But Not Really,” which was published by the literary magazine Conjunctions in 2020. In the story, as in the novel — just released in November by Skyhorse Publishing — Murphy creates characterization and narrative through a litany of fragmented descriptions and scenes that extend from the book’s title. These poetic shards accumulate into a tragicomic coming-of-age tale centered around the protagonist, nicknamed “Dead Man.”
“He’s nearing [the] end of his time as a radio man on a fast-attack submarine,” Murphy said of “Dead Man,” speaking to the Standard this week from her home in Reading. “The short story just focused on a little part of his life aboard the submarine with all of his shipmates, and it’s kind of turned into a funny and unusual coming-of-age novel about this character. I say ‘funny’ because that kind of close-knit setting on board the submarine lends itself so well to depicting how any group that’s confined for a long period of time will devolve into juvenile, oftentimes uproarious, behavior. The camaraderie in the colorful name-calling and the fronting that takes place on the submarine ends up compounding itself into something more serious.”
The world of naval life is one that Murphy knows well. “We have three children who all entered the Navy,” she said of her and her husband, Jeff Oney. “And they’re all great storytellers. The stories they bring home are sometimes hysterically funny, but they’re also told in tandem with other anecdotes that are oftentimes serious.” Murphy mentioned suicide as a somber note in some of the naval stories — and said the bond of shared humor can be a way to survive that pain. “In the book, I focused on this irony of having a constant hum of humor in the background even when there were serious life-altering situations taking place because I believe this provides for a tension that is necessary in dramatic storytelling,” she said.
Critics are already engaged with the novel, which has received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist — quite a trifecta of recognition in the publishing biz. Even with the immediate success of “Things That Are Funny on a Submarine But Not Really,” Murphy is already looking ahead to the publication of her next book — recently accepted for publication, also by Skyhorse.
For more on this, please see our Nov. 26 edition of the Vermont Standard.
