You just might do a ‘Helen’ after reading this
SOME time ago in conversation with a leading international film script writer, I asked him where he got his ideas from.
His answer was that sometimes a fact, and wondering about its surrounding circumstances, provided that creative spark.
The premise of Rosie Fiore’s new novel could have stemmed from one such fact.
What She Left is a complex and emotional story, one that gets the reader into the plot from the first page and sustains the interest as the story gradually unfolds.
Helen Cooper appears to have a happy life. She’s beautiful, accomplished, organised and a popular parent at the school.
Then, suddenly, she disappears. What happened? Was it something sinister?
In fact, she has chosen to walk away, abandoning her husband, two children and her home.
“Helen didn’t look back. She walked quickly to the end of the quiet road, turned the corner, and disappeared.”
Her husband Sam can’t understand what has happened. Where has she gone, and why?
Why leave a seemingly perfect life?
The anxiety torments him, and he gradually begins to lose his grip on work and his family life.
He sees Helen everywhere in the faces of strangers, but then, one day, it really is her face he sees…
Helen turning away from so much that on the surface appeared good, baffles everyone who knows her.
The story is narrated by four of its key characters, each offering their perspective on Helen’s disappearance.
This device adds individual “colour”.
Fiore’s characters are welldeveloped and one finds one’s sympathies ebbing and flowing between them.
Helen’s absence affects each of them in different ways. As one gets deep into the story, one realises that behind the perception of leading a good and happy life that Helen and Sam have their flaws.
Although labelling the book a thriller would not be totally accurate, one reads on waiting to tie the threads together.
In Helen, Fiore has created a most interesting character, one whose story could easily continue even as the book comes to an end.