It is 2003,
and Gil Coleman, famous writer of a scandalous novel, thinks he sees his wife
Ingrid who went missing eleven years earlier.
Trying to follow her, he falls and suffers a number of injuries. His daughters, Nan and Flora, rush to their
former home to care for their aging father.
Interspersed
with this story is a second timeline from 1976 to 1992. Ingrid, in the month leading up to her
disappearance, writes a series of letters to Gil in which she tells the truth
about their 16-year marriage: “I’m sure
I’ll write things you claim I imagined, dreamt, made up, but this is how I see
it. This, here, is my truth” (13). She hides
the letters in the many books collected by Gil.
One of the
mysteries of the book is whether Ingrid is alive. She was presumed to have drowned but her body
was never found. Flora refuses to believe
that her mother is dead, though Nan, the elder daughter, scoffs at the idea
that Ingrid is alive. It is this mystery
that creates interest throughout. In the
end, the reader has to decide for him/herself what to believe, and the epilogue
which ends on a very indefinite note will not please readers who yearn for more
closure.
Fuller
clearly feels as Gil does. He tells his writing
students: “’Writing does not exist
unless there is someone to read it, and each reader will take something different
from a novel, from a chapter, from a line. . . . A book becomes a living thing
only when it interacts with a reader.
What do you think happens in the gaps, the unsaid things, everything you
don’t write? The reader fills them from
their own imagination. But does each
reader fill them how you want, or in the same way? Of course not. . . . all books are created by
the reader’” (26). The use of the “open
verdict” (287) at the end is another way that Fuller lets the reader decide
what happened.
The events
of 2003 are narrated in third person, using Flora’s point of view. Flora is not a likeable character. She is 22 years of age but she is very
self-centred and immature. Though she
clings to things her mother owned (a suitcase, a dress, and even a swimming towel),
she worships her father though it becomes obvious from Ingrid’s letters that
Gil is not the man Flora imagines. She
seems to resent her sister because Nan took on the role of mother after Ingrid
disappeared. She is naïve and
unaware.
Flora was
always closer to her father perhaps because the two are so much alike. Nan even says, “’Like father, like daughter’”
(247). Gil has a public persona (a handsome
man who mesmerizes people with his charm and wit), but as a husband and father,
Ingrid shows him to be largely absent.
In her letters, he emerges as a narcissist unconcerned with the needs of
his wife and family; the title of the novel that gains him fame and notoriety
describes him perfectly.
The book asks
whether it is better to be a realist or a dreamer. Flora argues that “’Not knowing is so much
better’” whereas Nan has the opposite view:
“’I’d rather know the truth . . . I’d like to know what really happened’”
(113). As a young man, Gil argues that
imagination can give people hope (167) but later seems to change his mind: “’I’m beginning to think it’s better to know,
one way or the other. It’s taken me a
long time to realize, but I don’t think it’s good to have an imagination which is
more vivid, wilder, than real life’” (113).
There are
weaknesses in the book. Characters do
not always believe plausibly. Gil’s appeal
to Ingrid doesn’t make sense; he’s a man twice her age and he treats her abysmally
from the beginning, both ignoring her and expecting her to pay his library
fines. She is supposedly an intelligent
woman, yet she is so easily manipulated, even after warnings from both her and
Gil’s best friends? By the late 1970s,
birth control was not uncommon so why she didn’t use it? The ending has Jonathan and Louise behaving
implausibly: given the circumstances, their
going to the pub for a sandwich does not make sense.
As I’ve
already implied, this is a book in which much is not said. This style is appropriate for a novel in
which characters to do communicate well.
Ingrid writes to say “all the things I haven’t been able to say in
person” (13) and Flora complains, “’Nobody told me anything . . . I had to work
it out by listening at doors, overhearing snatches of conversation and filling
in the gaps’” (247). Like Flora whose “questions
again went unanswered” (287), the reader will wonder about many things.
People not
liking ambiguity would probably find themselves frustrated with this
novel. Others might enjoy reading
something that almost becomes a “choose your own adventure” book. Symbolism abounds, beginning with the rain of
fish (22); these await the reader to interpret.
I enjoy interpreting works of literature but I must admit to sometimes
getting frustrated at what seemed to be the author’s unwillingness to be a
factualist. For those who prefer to use
their own imaginations, here’s a warning from Ingrid: “reality is so much more conventional than
imagination” (275).
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