Small towns writ large
Tales that range from the domestic and hokey to the brilliantly chilling.
Tales that range from the domestic and hokey to the brilliantly chilling
Small towns anywhere in the world are good settings for psychological thrillers: they have an inbuilt sense of claustrophobia, suspicion of anyone a bit weird, curtaint-witchers aplenty and malicious gossip. IF I DIE TONIGHT (Century, $37), by AL Gaylin, is set in a small American town where Jackie, a struggling solo mother, is trying to bring up her two sons to be decent law-abiding citizens. The family unit has been close, but the older boy, Wade, has become, like teenagers everywhere, remote. He no longer fits in and he no longer tells his mother where he’s going or where he’s been. There is a hit-and-run and another boy, a student in Wade’s year at high school, is killed.
Wade is acting suspiciously and is, in turn, regarded with suspicion by many in the town. Did he kill the kid? There are clues and red herrings on social media – a tedious device that feels lazy.
This is a reasonable attempt at a mix of the domestic and the sinister, but like too many American thrillers, it cannot resist the hokey.
In another small American town, Claudia buys a derelict house and takes on its restoration as therapy: an attempt to restore her life after a series of ghastly events involving a sexual assault, which has led to the end of her hitherto lovely life and of her marriage. In THE RED HUNTER (Simon
& Schuster, $35), by Lisa Unger, the lives and fates of Claudia and Zoey, who grew up in the house, collide.
Zoey’s parents were killed in this house. Her father was a cop, a pillar of the community, apparently. Zoey’s therapy is martial arts. She trains disturbed teenage girls to take care of themselves. Meanwhile, Claudia’s daughter is now a teenager and wants to take a DNA test to see who her real father is – the man who regards her as his daughter or her mother’s rapist.
This fair rips along in a tumble of unlikely events and coincidences, but the writing’s above average and I like the idea of the house being a character.
BASED ON A TRUE STORY (Bloomsbury, $28), by French writer Delphine de Vigan, is about a writer named Delphine whose memoir, Nothing Holds Back the Night, was a controversial sensation – not least within her own family. It was based on her mother, who was beautiful, mad and clever and who killed herself.
Now Delphine has writer’s block. She meets a beautiful and clever woman, L, at a party. They get drunk and become friends. L is a fan of Delphine and has firm opinions about what she should write next.
Is Based on a True Story really based on a true story? The genius of the trick is that you are never quite sure of anything. Did L exist – in reality or even as a character in what might be the novel that L did not want Delphine to write? Perhaps, like her mother, Delphine is mad. But which Delphine? Or is it L who is mad?
L wants to take over Delphine’s life, but mostly she wants to take over her mind. The pace is brilliantly, chillingly glacial and you teeter and slip on the ice as it shifts, oh so slowly, beneath your feet.