First Published: 2011
RATING: VERY GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
I finished reading this novel in the middle of this week. It starts with Charles, who has a cycling accident and hits his head. As a consequence, he becomes comatose. His wife, Anne, is at home, and when the police come to tell her, she reacts strangely, deciding to finish the stew she is cooking.
As Charles remain comatose and his wife and daughter, Charlotte, visit, we learn the difficult relationship in this family. Anne and Charlotte find it difficult to talk. Anne says that she loves her daughter with all her heart, but somehow she is unable to convey her feelings.
As the chapters succeed, we discover about Anne's past and her relationship with Charles. They met at university, and she felt lucky that someone as handsome and interesting as Charles would choose her over other women. Just after the wedding, on their honeymoon, Anne discovered that Charles had little interest in her, and she realised that having a wife was just a box he had to tick. Soon he discovered that he was unfaithful to her even with their neighbours in the street.
Charlotte is fighting her own demons. She is in a relationship with Gabriel, but she feels unsecure about him and his love. He is separated and his friends seem unable to accept her as Gabriel's new partner. We discover that Charlotte was sexually abused by her father as a child. It started with her father just rubbing her thighs in a way that made her uncomfortable, and it grew up to more intimate touch. THen one day when he was to drive her to school, he took another street and then he stopped the car, he started to kiss her. Charles stopped when he noticed that his wife was outside the car watching them. Charlotte hoped she would do something, but Anne simply walked away, and Charlotte ran home. AFter that, Charles didn't go home for a few days, but then he reappeared and he stopped his abuse.
Charlotte has always struggled in life because of those terrible memories. She has always fought her feelings of fearing her father but at the same time wanting his love, and with her mother she felt she should have protected her. The way the author reflects these two women's thoughts is really beautiful.
Charlotte and Anne finally have a heart-to-heart talk, and we discover how hard Anne has been on herself and how guilty she has always felt. I think that she has no excuse for the way she did not make her daughter feel safe. She tells Charlotte that she knew that Charles wouldn't dare to do something terrible to her, but I don't understand that; what he did was already horrible. The only thing that excuses her is that we learn that after what happened, she threatened to abandon him and take Charles with her if he did something, and that is why he stopped.
At the end of the book mother and daughter manage to reconcile, and Charlotte learns to have more confindence in herself. Charles eventually dies, and in the epilogue Charlotte and Gabriel have a baby daughter and Anne now feels freer to show her love for her granddaughter.
I really loved the book. My only misgiving is how Anne's behaviour was justified.
No comments:
Post a Comment