The narrator is Lisa Evans, a 36-year-old teacher in Peterborough,
England. What is unusual about her is
that she is dead; as a ghost she wanders the train station. Eighteen months
earlier, Lisa died on a railway platform.
Her death was ruled a suicide, but after witnessing a man jump in front
of a train, Lisa vows, “I didn’t do what he did. I didn’t throw myself off Platform
Seven. So what happened to me?”
At first, Lisa has no memory of her past life, but once she regains her
memory, she flashes back to her relationship with Dr. Matthew Goodison. Though charming and charismatic in public, in
private Matty is very psychologically controlling. He limits Lisa’s contact with her friends,
questions her mental health, and makes subtle threats which he easily explains
away as being threats only in her mind.
So is the truth about Lisa’s death to be found in this toxic
relationship?
I had difficulty with the ghostly Lisa because the author kept changing
the rules which governed her existence and behaviour. Initially, she has not memories of her life;
she doesn’t even know her name. Then she
remembers everything about her life; even conversations are related
verbatim. She realizes “Most of the
time, I know what people are thinking,” but then there are people whose “thoughts
remain a mystery to me”? Lisa describes
herself as “nothing but consciousness,” but then she describes people passing
through her as if she has some type of form.
At the beginning, she is unable to leave the railway station in
Peterborough and she takes pains to describe her “boundaried world.” Then she suddenly discovers that she can
leave. Later it seems like she even has
the ability to see the future? These
inconsistencies make it difficult to accept the spectral Lisa as a narrator.
What the book does well is present a very nuanced portrayal of an
abusive relationship. Matty, bit by bit,
undermines Lisa’s confidence and self-esteem, and curtails her freedom. He threatens her physically but in such a way
that his actions can be interpreted innocently.
For instance, “He took hold of my face, his fingers indenting the soft
flesh of my cheek in four places on one side, the thumb on the other cheek pressing
against my jawbone.” When Lisa mentions
his grabbing her face, Matty says, “’Lisa, honestly, talk about
exaggeration. I didn’t grab your face. I showed you where I’d stitched [a girl who’d
fallen onto a radiator], I was explaining, honestly, really.‘” He then continues gaslighting her: “’We have to get this straight because quite
seriously I’m wondering if you’re totally insane.‘” In public, of course, he behaves so that
everyone is convinced of his love for her.
Lisa sums up his technique: “A
man like Matthew would never cross the line, I saw that now, he would just make
me feel worse and worse until I didn’t trust a single thought I had any more.”
The theme of love is explored. Lisa
learns about love: “I made the same
mistake that women and girls throughout the ages and across continents have so
often made, the one that is so easy and seductive, so flattering to
ourselves. I mistook possessiveness for
love. By the time I realised the
magnitude of that mistake, I had too much invested in it to unpack it, and so I
had to keep on making it in order to justify the fact that I had made it in the
first place.” She realizes that “Love
takes so many forms. . . . I just wish that I had kept more sense of
proportion.”
The book starts slowly so I wondered whether I should keep reading. It is only when Lisa starts her flashback
that the plot picks up momentum. This
flawed pacing and the issues with the ghostly narrator make this not my
favourite Louise Doughty novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment