Review of CONSENT by Annabel Lyon (New Release)

3.5 Stars 

I remember Annabel Lyon for her 2009 book The Golden Mean which I enjoyed very much.  When I heard about another of her novels being published this fall, I requested an advance reading copy from the publisher.

This book focuses on two pairs of sisters.  Sara and Matti are first introduced.  Sara is an academic who has a love for fine wines, designer clothing, and expensive perfumes; she will spend a fortune on a dress.  Her sister Matti is affectionate and trusting.  Because Matti is developmentally challenged, Sara eventually becomes Matti’s caregiver. 

The second pair is Saskia and Jenny.  Though twins, they are total opposites in terms of personality.  Saskia is the serious, responsible, hard-working university student while Jenny is the glamourous interior designer whose life is dominated by her self-centredness, impulsivity, and thrill-seeking.  Because of an accident, Saskia has to make decisions for Jenny.

For almost three-quarters of the novel, chapters alternate between the two sets of sisters.  In each tale, one sister, without consent, becomes responsible for the other.  There are other superficial similarities like obsessions with clothing and perfume, but I wondered if the two narratives would ever actually intersect.  Then tragedies bring them together in a shocking way. 

The book examines how sisterly love can be entangled with resentment.  Sara loves Matti but sees her as a burden who robs her “of the privacy Sara had sought so fiercely and protected for so long.”  Sara admits to a friend, “’I wanted her at a distance’” and “The truth was that she was mean to Mattie, she was impatient, she was at times very, very cruel.”  Likewise, Saskia loves Jenny but feels she can never escape her twin:  “Jenny was her sun and moon:  there was no escaping her.  Saskia was ever alert to the ways her sister could hurt her, ever afraid of the ways Jenny might hurt herself.”  Saskia thinks about the complicated truth of loving her sister:  “Of course she and Jenny were closer to each other than anyone else.  That closeness didn’t shield her from Jenny’s manipulations, her cruelty.  Of course Saskia loved Jenny.  That didn’t mean she wasn’t also frightened of her, and frightened for her . . .  Jenny was the kind of person who could fly away or go up in flames at any moment.  It was exhausting to be her counterweight, her rock, her extinguisher, her control.”

The novel also explores how grief can be entangled with guilt.  Sara makes decisions for Matti without considering what might be best for her sister:  “She had taken the sun and the moon from Matti.”  A friend points out to Sara that she has not suffered because of having Matti in her life; he asks her sarcastically, “’Tell me all the opportunities you’ve had to turn down.  Tell me all the jobs that were refused you.  Tell me about your life of poverty and disenfranchisement and abuse.  . . . You have money and education and power.’”  Sara finds herself “chained in the masturbatorium of her own guilt, clawing at her own pinkest places.”  Though she claims guilt will not consume her, Saskia says she is the one responsible for her sister’s fate:  “’Me . . . I’m the one . . . I wanted her to know it was me.   . . . Just like I want you to know it was me.’” 

As the title indicates, consent is a theme.  As a medical ethicist, Sara writes a paper, with Matti in mind, “on capacity and consent in adults with special needs” and Saskia, thinking about Jenny’s choices, writes a literary essay “on the implications of consent in Réage.”  Neither Sara nor Saskia consents to the responsibilities thrust on them.  Most significantly, the novel asks the reader to consider what s/he might consent to because of love. 

I became impatient with parts of the book.  Sara’s focus on perfumes and fashion and the purchase of a particular dress becomes tedious, as does Saskia’s later fixation with clothes.  These sections have a purpose:  “Clothes as costume and code.”  It is noteworthy that Sara wastes an inheritance and what she spends on clothes “’could put a kid through college.’”  Even Saskia asks, “’And I’m wearing my sister’s clothes, so whatever that says about me -.’”  I just found that many of the descriptions were too detailed.

The novel’s best quality is its portrayal of relationships between sisters.  I think anyone with a sister will acknowledge the realism of the complex sisterly relationships developed in this thought-provoking book.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.  The book will be released on September 29, 2020.