"None of it would have happened if I had handled things better." (page 192)
I have warmed to this book since I finished it. On one hand, well written, and very sure of what (I think) the author is setting out to do.
On the other hand, a narrative powered almost entirely by people (especially the narrator) doing stupid things. A young woman who has been so traumatized by a vicious, random attack on a London street that she takes up a job at a remote University, four hours away by car -- and rents a house in the middle of nowhere, with no phone, wifi or cellphone signal?
So on one level, almost everything that happens in the novel seems easy to fix: rent a more sensible house. Get serious therapy for the PTSD. Slap the idiot husband upside the head, and tell him what a selfish, manipulative, obnoxious waste of space he is. (You may sense that I didn't like the husband. I actually cheered when -- offstage, unfortunately -- the husband's own mother does exactly that and tells him a few home truths. Well, minus the slap upside the head. Unfortunately ...) Tell her colleagues what is going on in her toxic, dysfunctional creative writing class. And that's just what I can say without deep-diving into spoiler territory ...
BUT ... I have to confess that, as much as it maddened me, I get it. Which one of us hasn't made bad decisions, under pressure? Life is messy, and people are complicated, and Baker captures all too well the fact the sometimes the narrative of our lives is powered by stupidity -- well-meaning, proud, doing-the-best-you-can stupidity.
"This is how it happened. It may be messy and imperfect, but it is my truth." (page 272)
I'm still not entirely convinced by how it all plays out. So, not perfect, but nothing is. Very good.
If you're interested, this is also a clever and painfully realistic account of a Creative Writing class that goes nightmarishly wrong, which brought on flashbacks of some of my worst days teaching undergraduate Creative Writing. (Where's my Trigger Warning, eh, Ms Baker? Traumatized, I am traumatized!!)
I have warmed to this book since I finished it. On one hand, well written, and very sure of what (I think) the author is setting out to do.
On the other hand, a narrative powered almost entirely by people (especially the narrator) doing stupid things. A young woman who has been so traumatized by a vicious, random attack on a London street that she takes up a job at a remote University, four hours away by car -- and rents a house in the middle of nowhere, with no phone, wifi or cellphone signal?
So on one level, almost everything that happens in the novel seems easy to fix: rent a more sensible house. Get serious therapy for the PTSD. Slap the idiot husband upside the head, and tell him what a selfish, manipulative, obnoxious waste of space he is. (You may sense that I didn't like the husband. I actually cheered when -- offstage, unfortunately -- the husband's own mother does exactly that and tells him a few home truths. Well, minus the slap upside the head. Unfortunately ...) Tell her colleagues what is going on in her toxic, dysfunctional creative writing class. And that's just what I can say without deep-diving into spoiler territory ...
BUT ... I have to confess that, as much as it maddened me, I get it. Which one of us hasn't made bad decisions, under pressure? Life is messy, and people are complicated, and Baker captures all too well the fact the sometimes the narrative of our lives is powered by stupidity -- well-meaning, proud, doing-the-best-you-can stupidity.
"This is how it happened. It may be messy and imperfect, but it is my truth." (page 272)
I'm still not entirely convinced by how it all plays out. So, not perfect, but nothing is. Very good.
If you're interested, this is also a clever and painfully realistic account of a Creative Writing class that goes nightmarishly wrong, which brought on flashbacks of some of my worst days teaching undergraduate Creative Writing. (Where's my Trigger Warning, eh, Ms Baker? Traumatized, I am traumatized!!)
