They say they were abducted by aliens. What do they have in common?

Capture, Amanda Lohrey’s 10th book, is an odd beast. It follows sexagenarian Dr James “Jim” Mather, a clinical psychiatrist who is persuaded by a colleague to take on a new cohort of patients. The commonality between them all is that each one claims to have been abducted by aliens. Mather is tasked with finding a behavioural pattern among these disparate individuals to provide a psychological assessment of the “experiencers”, as he calls them. What were their triggers, if any? Were they delusional “nutters and attention seekers” captured by their own unconscious desires for a bit of magic? Or were they a symptom of our godless culture, indulging in a compensatory need to invest in a different kind of metaphysical hope?

One may be forgiven for thinking Lohrey is venturing into new genre territory here – a sci-fi thriller, perhaps – but no. Despite Capture’s unusual subject matter it remains firmly within the realm of literary fiction, written in the author’s signature reflective style.

Narrated in the first person by Mather, his language and tone are exactly what you’d expect from an ageing medic: ponderous, avuncular and a little pompous. The overall effect is that of someone who uses his words carefully and deliberately. Aided by his assistant, Lucy Cheng, who sits in his consulting room and takes notes during interviews, the psychiatrist shares some of his case files with the reader.

This new project was supposed to be a bit of a lark – a diversion from his previous, year-long study of suicidal young men. He thinks that at least the experiencers will be “outrageously imaginative, open to the perversely sublime”. Like many others, Mather is sceptical of claims of UFO contact. “Took off in a flying saucer for a spin around the galaxy?” he jokes about a patient of his friend’s but he soon finds himself overinvested in the stories of his own alleged alien abductees. Maybe, he reasons, the mere telling of their tales – hitherto concealed for fear of public ridicule – will offer therapeutic release for these “fantasists”.

Among the doctor’s patients is Anthony, a petroleum engineer who was in Kazakhstan for work at the time of his apparent abduction, and Mary, a beautician who was allegedly taken from her bedroom after seeing a ball of light. Both claimed to have been subjected to invasive procedures as part of a cross-species breeding program. Aside from these stories of technological rape, another experiencer describes a feeling akin to religious ecstasy upon meeting his captors.

There is not much of a plot in Capture. We learn a little about Mather and his opioid addiction – the result of an old back injury – and there are cameos from his wife and son. There is even less information about Cheng, aside from her role as a project assistant and a harried single mother of two. In fact, Lohrey seems more interested in ideas than characterisation. There are digressions into a number of topics, including folklore and theology, humanity’s desire for longevity, and Silicon Valley tech bros’ enthusiasm for creating a master race via a form of eugenics. In their eyes, pronatalism and space travel go together: to counter an Earth that is irreparably damaged, why not help create an interplanetary species and kick-start a new evolution?

It’s not giving away anything to say that Mather comes to no real resolutions about his patients, and although the abduction stories are “all different, and yet somehow all the same”, they are simply presented for our perusal.

Lohrey won a Miles Franklin Award for her eighth novel, The Labyrinth (2020), a quiet, contemplative book of grief and redemption about a woman constructing a stone labyrinth in her yard, a location near where her son is incarcerated. Her subsequent book, The Conversion (2023), follows a widow trying to renovate a church into a home after the death of her husband.

Unlike her previous books, which use nature as a restorative balm, Capture is marked by its interiority: most of the action takes place within consulting rooms, the university grounds or a nearby cafe where Mather and Cheng repair to debrief. Those earlier books also played with ideas of transformation.

In Capture there’s some indication that a number of the experiencers’ lives have changed since their contact with non-human life forms but there’s scant detail, with more questions than answers proffered.

Capture by Amanda Lohrey is published by Text ($35).

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