... every time I thought of [what they found] my mind ran aground on the flat, stunning, unbudging reality of it; there didn’t seem to be any way to think beyond or around it. It reminded me, with a deep sickening lurch in my stomach, of my few memories from right after the attack: disconnected images stripped of any context or meaning, only and vastly and unthinkably themselves... [loc. 3021]
Toby Hennessy thinks he's a lucky man. He's grown up in a comfortable middle-class family: he's handsome, charming, et cetera: nothing bad has ever happened to him. At the outset of The Wych Elm, he's handling publicity for an art gallery. They're about to put on a new show featuring art by what might politely be termed 'disadvantaged youth': Toby discovers that Tiernan, his colleague, is 'improving' the art, and keeps quiet until the boss finds out. Toby's luck holds, of course, and it's Tiernan who loses his job.
But then something bad does happen: Toby surprises burglars in his flat, and ends up in hospital with a head injury and bad PTSD. He can't cope by himself ... but then his Uncle Hugo, who is terminally ill, invites him to stay at the Ivy House. The place brings back fond memories of long-ago summers for Toby, and he agrees. He even ends up helping Hugo with his genealogical work ('They’re afraid that they’re not who they always thought they were, and they want me to find them reassurance,' says Hugo when Toby asks him why people want to know about their ancestry).
And then Toby's nephew discovers something horrible in the garden, and Toby starts to wonder if he is actually who he always thought he was.
That's the first third of the book. The remainder charts the disintegration of Toby's sense of self. It's a stunning tour de force of PTSD, gaslighting, unforeseen consequences and morally dodgy police work. (Yes, there are detectives here, though not characters we've met in French's 'Dublin Murder Squad' novels). The final chapters, in particular, are a masterclass in tension and resolution: because everything is connected, and small actions that should mean nothing can matter immensely.
I found Toby's narrative, his struggle to make sense of everything, compulsively readable: I also very much liked his cousins Susannah and Leon. Susannah in particular is sharp as a knife in a linen drawer, and perhaps the most articulate individual in the novel: her speech about people who treat you as though you're not a person (something that Toby, of course, is only just starting to experience, with his slurred words and confusion) is very powerful.
For many readers (myself among them) this novel's title will evoke Bella in the Wych Elm: I'd also, fairly recently, read a novel based on that case, Cathi Unsworth's That Old Black Magic. Aside from the site of the remains, there are no similarities: but I wonder if French was making a deliberate reference. (She does talk about it a bit, in this spoilery interview.)
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My honest review is: so good I may actually buy a copy as well as having the review copy!
No comments:
Post a Comment