Addressed to Greta
by Fiona Sussman
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Greta Jellings blushes and bumbles her way through her carefully ordered existence, forever constrained by what her mother would have said and done. NO EXPECTATION, NO DISAPPOINTMENT was one of her mother's mantras, and it has served Greta well too. But it is the death of her dear friend Walter, and his unusual bequest, that finally force her to escape the shackles of her safe life. For Walter has set Greta a challenge that leads her across the world, so far outside her comfort zone that she show more has no choice but to confront who she really is. In the foreignness of strangers she will find the familiar, and in the expanse of the vista she will gain perspective. Most of all, she will find the courage to be seen, and express her true self... show lessTags
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Addressed to Greta is New Zealand author Fiona Sussman's third novel, and I asked the library to order a copy, based on this review at Read Close. Sussman was already on my radar since her debut novel Shifting Colours and I featured her in Meet a Kiwi Author so I was expecting to enjoy this.
And, despite a mild tendency to stray into Worthy Sentiments, Addressed to Greta is enjoyable reading. It features a socially-awkward single woman in her late thirties, constrained by the relentless voice of her dead mother Nora's preoccupation with conformity and respectability. (Nora has her reasons for this, but we don't find out what they are until long after we have blamed her for Greta's predicament.) Greta has never had a relationship, and show more since the death of Walter, she doesn't have any real friends, nor any family. She is lonely, insecure, and captive to the safe routines of her life.
Walter, however, changes everything, and from beyond the grave at that. She had fallen for him, only to find out that he was gay, but in a sign that's there's more to Greta than meets the eye, that romantic love morphed into a deep affection. It was Greta who stayed by his side when he died of liver cancer. And because he was very fond of her too, he left money in his will for her to travel and see more of the world than New Zealand has to offer. (Greta hasn't even been to the South Island.)
The catch is that he's left instructions with his solicitor Angus, that her all-expenses-paid trip overseas will be orchestrated entirely by him. Until just before her departure she doesn't know what Walter's choice for her first destination is, much less the others. There's a three-month time limit on her departure date, so that if she dithers, the money will go to charity. Plus, since she doesn't know how long she'll be away for, she has to give up the lease on her home, resign from her job, and find somewhere for her pet chicken to live during her absence. These are major life-changing decisions for a single woman with limited employability and insecure housing, and the reader has to take it on trust that Walter, whose conditions of acceptance imply that he thinks he knows what's best for Greta, hasn't dealt her a dud pack of cards. The characterisation of Greta shows that she needs to learn to take a risk, and the novel is a rom-com of sorts, but all the same, these conditions look like controlling behaviour to me.
(I don't have much patience with people/characters who try to control events from beyond the grave. They've had their time on earth!)
Anyway, full of trepidation, Greta sets off for New York, escorted around the city for a week by Walter's friend Frank. From Frank she learns aspects of Walter's life that he had withheld, and she feels peeved that someone else knew him better than she did. She survives her terrors (which derive mostly from watching American films) by meeting a succession of very nice people, who, one after the other, teach her something about rising above stereotypes and the inequities of the world. She then learns not to trust her ignorant assumptions in London, and has various epiphanies along the way in Rwanda.
In a Bridget Jones kind of way, most of this is quite droll. Greta is tall and ungainly and has embarrassingly large feet. She speaks before she thinks, and she over-explains her faux-pas and apologises all the time. She hugs people without knowing whether it's culturally appropriate or not, she badgers her tour guide about whether he's Tutsi or Hutu when he has clearly explained that he is Rwandan only, and she even curtsies to a doorman. Even smiling at all this feels a bit mean because it's such a poignant situation. Her progress through this journey of discovery is constantly punctuated by her mother's sour voice and poisonous admonitions, with Walter's encouraging letters not entirely able to drown her out.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/03/23/addressed-to-greta-by-fiona-sussman/ show less
And, despite a mild tendency to stray into Worthy Sentiments, Addressed to Greta is enjoyable reading. It features a socially-awkward single woman in her late thirties, constrained by the relentless voice of her dead mother Nora's preoccupation with conformity and respectability. (Nora has her reasons for this, but we don't find out what they are until long after we have blamed her for Greta's predicament.) Greta has never had a relationship, and show more since the death of Walter, she doesn't have any real friends, nor any family. She is lonely, insecure, and captive to the safe routines of her life.
Walter, however, changes everything, and from beyond the grave at that. She had fallen for him, only to find out that he was gay, but in a sign that's there's more to Greta than meets the eye, that romantic love morphed into a deep affection. It was Greta who stayed by his side when he died of liver cancer. And because he was very fond of her too, he left money in his will for her to travel and see more of the world than New Zealand has to offer. (Greta hasn't even been to the South Island.)
The catch is that he's left instructions with his solicitor Angus, that her all-expenses-paid trip overseas will be orchestrated entirely by him. Until just before her departure she doesn't know what Walter's choice for her first destination is, much less the others. There's a three-month time limit on her departure date, so that if she dithers, the money will go to charity. Plus, since she doesn't know how long she'll be away for, she has to give up the lease on her home, resign from her job, and find somewhere for her pet chicken to live during her absence. These are major life-changing decisions for a single woman with limited employability and insecure housing, and the reader has to take it on trust that Walter, whose conditions of acceptance imply that he thinks he knows what's best for Greta, hasn't dealt her a dud pack of cards. The characterisation of Greta shows that she needs to learn to take a risk, and the novel is a rom-com of sorts, but all the same, these conditions look like controlling behaviour to me.
(I don't have much patience with people/characters who try to control events from beyond the grave. They've had their time on earth!)
Anyway, full of trepidation, Greta sets off for New York, escorted around the city for a week by Walter's friend Frank. From Frank she learns aspects of Walter's life that he had withheld, and she feels peeved that someone else knew him better than she did. She survives her terrors (which derive mostly from watching American films) by meeting a succession of very nice people, who, one after the other, teach her something about rising above stereotypes and the inequities of the world. She then learns not to trust her ignorant assumptions in London, and has various epiphanies along the way in Rwanda.
In a Bridget Jones kind of way, most of this is quite droll. Greta is tall and ungainly and has embarrassingly large feet. She speaks before she thinks, and she over-explains her faux-pas and apologises all the time. She hugs people without knowing whether it's culturally appropriate or not, she badgers her tour guide about whether he's Tutsi or Hutu when he has clearly explained that he is Rwandan only, and she even curtsies to a doorman. Even smiling at all this feels a bit mean because it's such a poignant situation. Her progress through this journey of discovery is constantly punctuated by her mother's sour voice and poisonous admonitions, with Walter's encouraging letters not entirely able to drown her out.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/03/23/addressed-to-greta-by-fiona-sussman/ show less
This is a feel good story which I enjoyed. It is very different from her previous novels which I have read.
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