Harriet Lane (1)

I almost gave this book 5 stars because I found it so compelling, but I removed half a star out of some sense of spite for the main character, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of starring in a 5-star read. I know that makes no sense, but you might understand my thinking a little better if you read this book.

Frances Thorpe is an average 30-something single woman in London, working in a low-level position in a failing newspaper. Through a strange twist of fate, her life becomes show more entwined with that of the Kyte family, whose patriarch is a famous author. She slowly insinuates herself into the life of the family. The tone of the book is tense and slightly creepy and the pay-off to the reader is almost anti-climactic at first. I closed it thinking, "Is that all? That's not so bad." But as I thought about it and went back and re-read some passages, I saw the manipulative genius of Frances. And the lingering feelings of unease I had were hard to pin down. Frances is not an evil character in the traditional sense; she really doesn't do anything terribly wrong. She's loathsome and sad and brilliant and awful, and you feel for her. But at the end of the day, one wonders whether the fragile construct of a life she has built for herself can survive given that it is not really her own... show less

Six-word review: Vindictive passion drives woman's calculated revenge.

Extended review:

It's not just that two people experience and remember the same event differently. That wouldn't be so bad. But when the event is life-altering for one of them while for the other it's too trivial to recall or even notice, that imbalance can create a festering wound.

The story of Her is told in the voices of the focal characters, Nina and Emma, in alternating chapters following a structure that has become show more very familiar in recent decades. It works better in some cases than others; here I'd say it's quite effective. Using lines of dialogue as anchor points to keep the reader oriented to the timeline, the shifting viewpoint calls into constant question the validity of both characters' perceptions. Emma's is deeply colored by her exasperatingly unfulfilled life as a young wife and mother, Nina's by her harbored resentment of a youth disrupted by events outside her control. The author exhibits considerable skill in sustaining our sympathetic identification with both characters even as we regard their actions with doubt, disapproval, or revulsion.

In a style at once lyrical and incisive, Lane exposes the complex inner lives of Nina and Emma, at odds in both cases with superficial appearance. Here's Emma reflecting on the tyranny of her toddler son's inflexible demands:

Christopher's margins are ribbon-narrow; if I allow him to get hungry or tired, he'll punish me. And those punishments are hard to bear. I'm already someone else, but the person I turn into at these low points is someone I never imagined I could be a few years ago: someone with a hot knot of fury where her heart used to be. (page 15)

More alike than either can possibly guess, each of them is plagued by intractable demons. In Nina's case, however, scheming and manipulating afford her the sense of mastery and control that Emma has long since lost. Nina seizes a chance to step in as a last-minute babysitter, insinuating herself ever more deeply into the life of the preoccupied, unwitting Emma:

For a while, I'm undecided. I think of Emma looking forward to her evening, excited but a little intimidated by all the effort involved in doing this differently, just this once: dressing up, leaving the kids, making conversation. Getting out into the world, seeing that it has all been ticking over happily, not missing her at all.
The thought of pulling the plug, robbing her of all this, is quite appealing.
And yet, and yet. There's an opportunity here for me. I feel the rightness of it. Why not? Two birds, one stone. (page 138)

Despite the homely content of these excerpts, the novel is not primarily a drama of perverted domesticity. It's a story of obsession and revenge. Says Nina's internal monologue: "I wonder if Emma ever stalks her younger self as I stalk mine, full of rage and pity" (page 149).

The gradual revelation of one character's increasingly invasive machinations paired with the other's willful obliviousness fosters a building sense of menace, a haunting, nameless peril of the sort that one senses in a Tana French novel. I don't think we need to understand why a certain long-ago event had the impact it did on Nina's life; we only have to see that it did, and in some respect we can comprehend--if not justify--what she does. We've seen a similar buildup in Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, if not a parallel situation: on some level, the scheme makes sense, even though we know it's bizarre, obsessive, and insane. It's the author's gift to make us feel the character's hunger for justice toward her history even as we must condemn the means.

The author's power of apt description enriches every page. Briefly, almost offhandedly, she evokes the way our existence is erased the moment we leave the restaurant, creating the illusion for the next patron that no one has ever occupied the table before:

I glance in the window, into the room which is full of a buttery low light pricked out with candles and silverware, and see the waiter clearing our table, whisking away the wine glasses and the coffee cups, the plate of petits fours, and lowering on a new white cloth with easy dramatic precision. (page 43)

In a few words she captures how different kinds of silence possess different qualities:

The house fills with the particular atmosphere that accompanies peacefully sleeping children: a rich narcotic silence that creeps down the stairs and twines itself around the table legs. (page 91)

The sorry intimacy of our personal laundry, so seemingly innocuous, exposes us mercilessly to the predatory voyeur:

Socks and pants and vests, the demoralized-looking bras in dishwater shades dangling there like pale bats. (page 143)

Not that the book is without flaws, but most of them are mechanical and probably not the fault of the author. There's a problem with quotation marks that runs throughout the book from start to finish--something I hope can be corrected before the bluelines are signed off and the presses run. There are editorial lapses, too (such as the all-too-common "bicep," missing the final s, which is not a plural).

There is also a vexing habit that does belong to the author, that of mentioning names for the first time without offering any relationship tags: needlessly disorienting. Leaving us to figure out who's the daughter, who's the ex, who's the father, and who's the cat really serves no purpose. Like so many other authors of contemporary literature, Harriet Lane needs to muster a little more defiance of the writer's-workshop tyranny of "show, don't tell." Some telling is okay; ordinary background information shouldn't require diligent sleuthing on the part of the reader.

In sum, I'll award this novel good marks for its characterization, plot development, style, and tone. Moreover, I thought the ominous but open-ended conclusion was just, fitting, and oddly satisfying in its way. Leaving me to recognize and examine my own thoughts about it is, I think, exactly the point: a final disturbing mirroring of the reader that in my mind calls up an echo of Baudelaire's famous line--"Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!"

Let it stand as a testament to the virtues of this novel for me that I was able to get through all 261 pages of a narrative in the present tense. That was enough to knock me off Hilary Mantel on page 1. If I hadn't been committed to an Early Reviewer read, my first, I'd have abandoned this one at the start for the same reason; but, without yielding one particle of my prejudice, I'm glad I didn't. I promise I will be watching for another work by this author. show less

As soon as I started this I knew it was a narrative voice I was going to enjoy listening to. Sharp and funny and observant, with an undercurrent of menace. It is a treat, too, to have those irritations of motherhood so skilfully depicted. What stay-at-home mum would not raise a wry smile at the bit where Emma returns home from shopping to find her husband reading the paper on the sofa, having generally neglected the kids (one needs a nappy change and the other is “bug-eyed in front of show more cartoons”), whereupon he happily hands everything back over to her and airily proposes to “jump in the bath”.

Reading this was such a pleasure it probably wouldn’t have mattered to me whether there was a plot, but essentially it centres around one of the characters having a secretly held grudge against the other. The cause of the grudge isn’t revealed until very late on in the book, giving the reader plenty of time to speculate. I don’t think many people will guess correctly. I don’t read other people’s reviews before writing my own but I’m going to guess some people will be disappointed. I wasn’t, though it may simply be that I had the best time reading it irrespective of the ending, and now have another author whose work I will definitely be seeking out. show less

During a night drive back to London, after a visit to her parents, Frances comes across a car crash and after calling for an ambulance, sits and talks to the trapped and injured driver, Alys, who dies before help can arrive. The aftermath of this leads Frances, a newspaper literary sub-editor, to become involve with the family of the driver. Her interest is piqued when she discovers that Alys’ husband is Laurence Kyte, a well-known author. What follows is an absorbing and fascinating show more psychological tale as Frances takes the opportunity to inveigle her way into the affections of the family and to use this connection to advance her career. Lane’s wonderful writing charts Frances’ blossoming from being unmemorable to moving to centre stage as her confidence increases and her plans successfully unfold. show less