Not all is quite as it seems
OUR HOUSE
Louise Candlish Loot.co.za (R362)
Simon & Schuster
FI AND BRAM Lawson seem to have it made. A lovely house in London that has appreciated in value and is worth millions of pounds, two sons, good careers. Friends, and a good school for their boys.
But things aren’t always what they seem. Fi and Bram are not quite as happy a couple as they appear to be.
In fact, Fi has found Bram with another woman in the playhouse at the bottom of their garden. Bram’s wife is not exactly the forgiving kind and she tosses him out of their home.
Bram has a great relationship with his sons and is bereft at the thought of not being with them, and so the couple come to a strange arrangement: they will keep the house and rent a flat nearby and take turns living in the house with the boys. They come to this very modern solution via the advice of a therapist.
It all seems to be working well until Fi comes home for her stint to find that her furniture and her sons are not there, and another couple are moving their worldly goods into her house.
It seems that Lucy and her husband have somehow bought the house, which is in both Fi and Bram’s names and are the new legal owners of it.
The only problem is that a distraught Fi doesn’t know where her sons are and doesn’t for a moment believe that the house has been legally sold.
She finds the boys at their paternal grandmother’s home soon enough, but of Bram there is no trace. His phone has gone silent. He has vanished.
Skip to the second part of this intriguing story and you have Bram’s story written in the form of a word document far away from London. In it is the confession of how the breaking of the law has led him into a situation where his only option is to leave the country and expunge all traces of himself.
Our House is basically a mystery story set in the benign suburbs. It’s a modern social commentary on how people rely on the value of owning houses and forget about the people in them.
It’s also a great and readable exposition of how the veneer of suburbia can cover a multitude of sins, both overt and covert.
Between the mystery and the plot (which is very clever) there are several audacious betrayals.
Our House is a fascinating book, it has enough plot and emotion to draw the reader in and keep them reading Fi and Bram’s stories.
It also has a surprising twist in the tale.
A book about how dishonesty can destroy lives, and how duplicity is not always confined to the seemingly guilty party. It’s well written, if not great literature and well worth a read.
Just take a close look at your title deeds if you own a house with someone else.