Novels No. 33 (LL351)

 

Katia Lief. The Invisible Woman. USA: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024.

The woman "behind the man." The shadow of a powerful, well-known man. Not even arm candy. Joni is experiencing a middle-aged struggle with her identity. Despite being a formerly recognized filmmaker in her own right, she is basically Mrs. Lovett. Like thousands of women, Joni is a public and private yes-woman, second fiddle, to the needs, wants, and ambitions of her husband Paul Lovett. He's already a well-known, hard-driving mega-producer of television/small screen credits; recently they've moved from L.A. to New York. When Joni reads that five women are making headline accusations against Hollywood bigshot Lou Pridgen, it triggers her own inner disturbance. Years ago, her best friend Val was one of those women, drugged and raped by Pridgen and a second unknown man, a secret the two friends agreed to hold fast, even though they've lost touch with each other.

Joni feels it imperative to contact Val, to urge her to come forward, join the victims, that she will support her wholeheartedly. But Val is loathe to revisit the trauma. When she impulsively does decide to meet with Joni, she's assaulted and left for dead, unknown to Joni who waited in vain. Our suspicions of the attacker are confirmed although to the police, Joni herself is "a person of interest." The resulting publicity does not please Paul, and as usual Joni placates and defers to him—not without thoughts of leaving her marriage. Her daughter Alex is a great comfort when she's available, a daughter who recognizes her father's domineering ego. On the evening of hosting a grand party for industry celebrities on Paul's behalf, Joni decides to reclaim herself. Besides a dead body, we find a shocking, completely unpredictable revelation, delivered by Detective McMullen.

I was so impressed with the previous book I'd read by the same author, writing as Karen Ellis (Last Night, in my Novels No. 26). She writes here in her real name, creating a living, breathing portrait of a troubled woman. Masterful.

Joni

▪ It was the smile he deployed to win arguments and negotiate deals. His assassin smile, she secretly thought of it. (6)

▪ Paul, of course Paul. After decades together, wasn't it time to confide in him? (27)

▪ "He can be an asshole, Mom. You know that, right?" (33)

▪ Pay attention to your wife, the director in her would have noted, at least a little bit, at least pretend. (36)

▪ Motherhood showed her that to embrace the abnegation of self was a virtue. (94)

▪ Paul knew nothing about her visit to the hospital or the restraining order, and their lives went back to the kind of normal where she simmered in quiet anxiety and he vanished into his work. (115)

▪ "Why didn't you tell me you talked to a detective?" (132)

▪ Years ago, they had been like sisters but without family baggage. Why had they let their friendship fade? (145)

Val

▪ Val wasn't sure if she had the emotional energy to unpack the conversation they'd need to have if they spoke. (21)

▪ Val had managed to flee her own apocalypse, to ditch the memories and the label of rape survivor, and she never thought about it, ever, if she could help it. Until recently. (44)

▪ "Joni, it's my choice. Let it go." (64)

▪ "She wants me on the Lou Pridgen bandwagon, but I didn't want to go there yet. I told her to leave me alone." (69)

Jenny Lund Madsen. Thirty Days of Darkness. UK: Orenda Books, 2023.

Here's my problem. This book has lonnng thick paragraphs. My eyes and my brain react with dismay right off the bat. Could well be something to do with age, but furthermore, by page 40 our heroine Hannah had not appropriately grabbed me. Hannah is the author of a few novels that largely escaped public attention, being of sound literary and intellectual merit; she critically distrusts crime novelists with formulaic plots and resounding commercial sales. Which is how her unfettered temper lands her in a challenge of her own making, with Jørn Jensen, who is exactly that sort of celebrated crime writer. Hannah declares any idiot could toss off such an inferior novel in a month. So, mild curiosity spurs me on. Her publisher (and only friend) Bastian convinces her to follow through, sending her to a remote town in Iceland for undistracted space to write.

Hannah wisely packs a lot of red wine for sustenance, since her elderly hostess Ella has none. Ella also lacks Danish or English to communicate with Hannah, making for some hilarious messages. But immediately a local death occurs ‒ young Thor ‒ son of Aegir and Ella's sister Vigdis: tragic accident or intentional murder? While she struggles with plotting her own story, Hannah plays amateur detective, to the irritation of the town's only cop, Viktor; she bumbles and bungles among these strangers, insisting it was murder. Some don't take kindly to her efforts, threatening, then trying, to kill her. Someone's revenge is indeed being served as cold as a traditional Iceland saga.

The wry humour keeps me going through the thickness while Hannah's new manuscript keeps going until she wakes up in hospital with a broken arm. The book is equally about Hannah and her consciousness, other characters almost blending with the snowy, cryptic environment. An unusually-constructed crime novel, my appreciation grew with the continually complicating scenarios, because Hannah switches direction at the drop of a coffee cup. Ah yes, persistence does pay off.

Bits

▪ "Sure, in one month I'll have written a work of crime fiction better than anything you've ever published." (19)

▪ She's slept for half an hour, called Bastian three times with no success, drank one and a half bottles of wine, been close a number of times to giving up entirely, but still returned to the keyboard each time. (47)

▪ "Don't stick your nose too deep into all this. This town has secrets that are best left alone." (63)

▪ Jonni finally throws the gun to the floor and sinks to his knees like a man who had been sentenced to death but was liberated mere moments before being led to the gallows. (73)

▪ The third measure of wine has found its way into the glass, and Hannah can't decide what's worse: destroying a marriage or saving it. (90)

▪ It seems as if the last remaining shades of green have been sucked out of the landscape over the past few days, as if Thor's death has erased all colour from the world. (94)

▪ Hannah screams in both fear and relief. The scream is contagious, and the two women scream into the dead of night, until they run out of breath. (109)

▪ Bastian is close enough to her to know she would rather saw her own arm off with a bread knife than take any writing advice from Jørn. (148)

▪ "If you say anything to Ella, I'll slice you open with this cake knife." (205)

▪ "But you can put the lights and siren on, and we can get there a little faster, right?" (212)

▪ An odd sense of pride, combined with a hint of shame, collide deep inside Hannah. Has she underestimated Jørn this significantly? (230)

Introspective

The fantasy of killing Jørn returns, this time with the feeling that it may actually be a genuine option, but Hannah manages to mobilise her entire personal morality and suppresses the urge to whack him over the head with the metal teapot. Wait! Why is she always so violent in her thinking? Why do fantasies of violence come so naturally to her as soon as someone so much as annoys her? A shameful and frightening sensation spreads through her body. If she herself is so primitive, so impulsive in her way of thinking, is she also capable of, or even predisposed to, committing a violent attack, a murder, maybe? And what then separates her from all the other potential murderers out there? (168)