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Ooohh. This is one smart, clever crime novel. British author Kate Atkinson began writing just a decade ago and promptly won the Whitbread First Novel Award. (If you write and despair at such instant writing success, be comforted that there was previous spadework. First she wrote short fiction for magazines.) The novel opens with an incident of road rage, and eerie intimations of homicide. The first character to which we are introduced is rather ordinary and a few well chosen words hint that this is intentional. Unfortunately for him, he has motored into the middle of traffic and crowds descending on downtown streets for an annual arts festival. When he is rear-ended by another vehicle from which there emerges a man with a baseball bat, he draws more attention than he would like. The rest of the novel spins out from this moment with the energy of a whirling dervish dance, spewing forth a bevy of characters and their, almost too hard to believe at times, coincidental meetings. (Though one character will say tellingly, “There are no coincidences, only events awaiting explanations.) This is the first book I’ve read by Atkinson, but I’ll be back. Her skills are obvious. Fine language (with that occasional British turn of a phrase that intrigues), literary allusions and literary devices. (Look for the repetition of words and thoughts from one character to the next. It’s artful! And I loved the creation of a character who writes trite but very popular crime novels yet laments he has not written something more complex and significant even as he is a character in a more complex and significant crime novel.) It’s the complexity that makes this novel smart and intriguing. Like the Russian nesting dolls important to one of the characters, Atkinson nests story inside story (inside story, inside story) which keeps us guessing until the very last page. Maybe a little overdone here and there– but a fun read. Enjoy! And if you’d like to hear an interview with Kate Atkinson click to go to NPR’s website www.npr.org. Scott Simon interviewed her on Weekend Edition 11/18/07. The passage Atkinson reads is filled with foreshadowing that I didn’t fully catch as I read. Tempts me to re-read it again. Though I’ve too many other books begging! <back to list |
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