Susanna Jones (1)

"Last night I tried to climb the Matterhorn again".

Grace opens her story with echoes of one of fiction's most famous unreliable narratives, Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, although for most of the story, I wanted to believe her. She is looking back telling her story a few years later, a lonely woman haunted by her past.

Edwardian child Grace dreams obsessively of adventure and Polar exploration, a huge contrast with her upbringing with parents whose ideas of their daughters' future are show more stultifyingly oppressive. Somehow Grace escapes to university, where she founds an Antarctic Exploration Society. They offer their services to Ernest Shackleton in a letter signed with initials and surnames only, though sadly they never get a response, and an expedition to climb the Alps ends in tragedy.

I was totally drawn into Grace's story by her voice, which made the question of female madness raised by the story all the more compelling (more echoes of Rebecca?)

A disturbing and thought provoking read.

Reviewed for Amazon Vine program in March 2012 show less

How would you react if you were arrested for murder?

Would you be angry? Frightened? Horrified? Or would you reflect on the prevalence of earthquakes in your adopted city? If the latter sounds like you then you might get along very well with Lucy Fly, English-born, Tokyo-based and newly minted murder suspect.

What's it about?

Within the first few pages of this mystery, Lucy is arrested for the murder of a friend. Did she do it? While the police attempt to interrogate her, she sits quietly, show more sifting through her memories, sharing with the reader her family history and relating the development of two recent relationships - including her connection to the murder victim.

What's it like?

Although this is presented as a murder mystery, and there is a focus on solving the crime, this is a psychological drama rather than a police procedural. As I read, I was drawn into Lucy's world to such an extent that it was a fresh shock each time I was returned to the police station and the ineffectual remarks of the policemen. This feels like a character study or a fictional memoir and readers will want to know - Who is Lucy? What made her this way? Is she really capable of taking a life? As the novel develops we see death stalk Lucy and it seems horribly plausible, almost logical, that she might graduate to carrying it out. Taking her psychological portrait is the reader's ultimate aim.

Perhaps simply to heighten to the sense of strangeness, Jones has Lucy regularly refer to herself in the third person. For instance: 'Lucy hasn't always had a happy relationship with trees but it isn't fair to condemn all for the crimes of one.' On reflection, that would be a pretty strange sentence even if it were written in the first person, but I found the switching between first and third made the narration feel slightly disjointed. This is appropriate as Lucy does seem out of joint with her surroundings and the unusual narrative tic may be designed to show us how distant she is from herself, never mind other people. Lucy is an intriguing character who regularly reveals more to the reader than she herself may understand, though she does not believe herself to be naive. She shares a number of attributes with the murder victim, suggesting that she is also a victim of a kind.

Jones writes very carefully and deliberately so it feels like every detail could be significant in some way, from the earthquake that opens the story to the ripples in the puddle Teiji photographs. This helped to make the story feel powerful and engrossing, imbuing every moment with potential weight. Lucy works as a translator and seems to exist as an observer of society rather than a participant, giving the reader an insight into Japanese culture and Tokyo's georgraphy as she reflects on her experiences in detail. ('We discussed the cake, the wagashi. The soft, sticky bun was wrapped in a leaf. I didn't know what tree it was picked from but it tasted sharp and sweet.') The descriptive details evoke a world that is at once different and familiar: ladies sip tea, girls sit in noodle bars. Although this tale of obsession could be set anywhere, Jones firmly roots it in Tokyo, presumably with accuracy as the author has lived and worked there.

Final thoughts

Although I didn't find the opening gripping in the manner implied by the blurb, I soon found Lucy's character intriguing and read the story quickly with enjoyment. The ending is ambiguous with much left unresolved but there is a clear sense of conclusion and the reader is left pondering rather than wondering. Jones' descriptions of Japan's landscapes, customs, people and language are clear and interesting. Characters and details are convincing. It's beautifully written in lean, easy-to-read prose with occasional deft touches of humour. At 253 pages it's a relatively short read and is so compelling that you might find yourself staying up late to finish it in one sitting.

This is Jones' debut novel and I am really looking forward to reading the novels she has written since - 'Water Lily', 'The Missing Person's Guide to Love' and 'When Nights Were Cold'.

Highly recommended. show less

It is 1938 and the eve of the anniversary of a terrible event that happened fifteen years previously. Grace Farringdon is trapped in her Dulwich home, afraid to venture outside, reminiscing about her life and the path that led her to that incident in the Swiss Alps.

Contrary to some other reviewers, I did see how the publisher came to liken this novel to Barbara Vine: I was reminded of her dark and haunting novel A Dark Adapted Eye, a book that gains more significance with its second and show more subsequent readings. The same is true, in my opinion, for When Nights Were Cold. It is a book that defies easy categorisation as it is part historical novel, part psychological drama. It takes the form of journal entries, to all appearances written over a long period of time, that we learn of Grace's childhood and upbringing: her dream of visiting Antarctica as a member of Shackleton's expedition team, the defiance of her parents' wishes when she enrols in a college for ladies, her founding of the Candlin College Antarctic Exploration Society, her decision to go climbing with her three other Society friends in Wales and then Switzerland without chaperones or guides. I thought Susanna Jones captured the turbulence of the first twenty years of the 20th century well, a time of immense social changes, particularly for women. Some of her descriptions and allegories made me smile, especially the stiff conventions that surrounded the education of women and their "proper" conduct, something that comes across as faintly ridiculous only 100 years later. I won't give anything more away of the plot between the first page and the last than the synopsis above, but suffice to say that the complaints I had initially regarding the narration's disjointedness and confusion about timelines all get resolved in the end after finishing the book. I specifically went back to reread the first two chapters in this new light and it's all there, except the reader doesn't attach significance to the clues the author has cleverly left at the first reading. I felt that even the designer of this uncorrected copy was complicit (I believe the hardcover will have a different look). In my opinion it doesn't quite deserve five stars, but I might feel differently once I've read it a second time and come to appreciate how the author has led us along all this time. Well worth reading and rereading.

(This review was originally written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.) show less

As this book opens Lucy Fly is taken to a Japanese police station under suspicion of the murder of a fellow British girl, Lily. As we go back through Lucy's memories we definitely get the impression that she is capable of killing. This is not a comfortable read and Lucy's habit of referring to herself in the third person adds a certain degree of distance. Indeed she is a strange woman.

For a debut novel I found this a very atmospheric read. The descriptions of Japan and Lucy's reasons for show more living there are fully realised. I must say that Lucy is not a likeable character and, possibly, unreliable as a narrator. As the story unfolded I found myself wanting to know what happened to Lily. Is she the dismembered corpse or has something else happened to her? Did Lucy kill her?

Even though certain things made me uncomfortable I think that the way Susanna Jones writes is beautiful. The style of prose fits the story and I am interested to read more from this author. show less