It is difficult to leave this book. More specifically the book’s tone which permeates and resonates through the elegant sentences of its literature. T It is difficult to leave this book. More specifically the book’s tone which permeates and resonates through the elegant sentences of its literature. The words need to be spoken aloud or echoed within ones mind. Yet, after writing a number of successful non fiction books on history this is Spofford’s first novel. An historical fiction lingering on the edge of suspense, planted in the colony of New York in the 1740’s. Neither of these called my attention to them I being so enrapt in the unfolding of the prose. Attending this wedding of literature and suspense.
I understood what happened near the end and it still lingers but I was disappointed. Angry that my romance with the prose was severed. The next day thinking about it, it made sense. An important character looking back over the years. A history, yes? But then the lever thrown they tapped me on the shoulder and let me know that they who had been there, embellished and fictionalized in parts all that I read. Fictionalizing the fiction of this character who was fictionalized by Spofford has been fictionalized by me the reader. My gloss, my interpretation, insights and confusions. And now you too reading this dizzying attempt at a review?...more
There are many gradients of sandpaper, from coarse to fine. Tana French up until this novel, in her Dublin Murder Squad series, has been a master of tThere are many gradients of sandpaper, from coarse to fine. Tana French up until this novel, in her Dublin Murder Squad series, has been a master of the use of sandpaper; never needing a power sander, by hand she has deftly shaved her literary-crime-mystery-suspense novels into crafted constructs.
A sixteen year old teenage student of an elite boarding school takes a photo placed on the school notice board, called the Secret Place, of the student murdered seven years ago, to a Detective Stephen Moran. Written beneath the victims photo: I know who killed him.
A promising beginning but in the first three hundred pages of The Secret Place I had nothing to grip onto; no grit to catch my grasp. It may be due to me being a seventy year old grandfather but I had no interest in the blathering of rich teenage girls and their social manipulations. In her previous works what I loved was the tension set early within and between interesting characters, social groups, and the tensions pulled taut between inter and intra police department conflicts.
This was curiously missing during the first three hundred pages. The problems the girls at this rich boarding school faced seemed trivialized by the overuse of their lingo- I have a teen granddaughter and while she and her friends use the OMGs, etc.etc… it is nowhere near what I had to wade through, making my way through, these students trivial lives nor the level of snarky meanness. It seemed that French needed to rely on this in place of showing true character development. It felt to me like lazy writing, as did the prop of the notice board where students could anonymously pin on a card their secret feelings and grievances. Way too thin to carry the weight of what should be the budding tale.
I found much-most of it boring. The way the Murder Squad functioned or mis-functioned, any conflict between Moran and his new partner, and most of all what should have been the rope that was pulled to its greatest tightness- this one day, this one chance, that Moran had to prove himself so as to be promoted or if not spend the rest of his career stuck in the dullness of Cold Cases- was simply mentioned in passing. I just didn’t care.
The passing of time was a major part of the book’s structure and its alternating chapters between past and present provided more confusion for me than it added to the narration of the tale. This may be due to my age and some neurons deciding on their own when and in what order to fire. But it seemed to distract from the story and any building of tension. Also, throughout the book French used what I thought was the cheap and unnecessary announcements of how much longer the victim had to live. I thought it would be important for French to take her time and work this information into the narrative organically building further tension. I’ve read discussions on how the book ended. I like books that end open ended rather than tied up into a comfortable knot. But again it felt confusing that the book would end with an alternating chapter taking place in the past, a near replica of the opening of the book, unless it was to shout out, look at all that happened between. Whatever it gained seemed eradicated by the building of more webs of confusion. The closed parentheses of the beginning and end felt suffocating rather than provoking or confronting the reader.
Something else that I hope I just missed was the addition of an unexplained magic where the girls had the ability to make lights shut off and on with a movement of their hands. But how? Why include it if you’re not going to explain it? Just more spider webs? Laziness?
After page three hundred or so someone snuck in a fairly high dosage of caffeine or shot French up with adrenaline. It was a resurrection, the rising from the literary grave, and their was the Tana French that I admire and respect as a writer. She finally found her old rhythm and heightened tension to the point of bursting, using the uprisings of plot twists to get us to the murderer. Most of all she underscored a main point of the story; the need to be part of a group. How that markets safety, security and comfort, luring in those with an undeveloped sense of identity or no sense of one at all; a question of belonging vs. individuating into the person you are and need to become. This was well played out and fascinating to be a part of as it unfurled before me. There were also some exquisite lines and passages. She can truly write.
I look forward to reading the next and possibly the last in this series with the hope that French has large pots of steaming caffeinated black coffee set on the table before she begins.
To find a description and why to read Tana French go to Proustitute’s review of book number six The Trespasser....more
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