Anticipation
By Tanya Moir
Vintage
RRP $36.99
Reviewed by Maggie Rainey-Smith
The promotional media release says this is ‘startlingly original and
superbly written’ – well, I can’t argue with that. It also goes on to say the novel ‘takes a
darkly humorous look at family history’.
Dark indeed, and if there is humour, it’s decidedly black. But don’t be put off by that! I will confess that it took me a while to
warm to the narrator (Janine), the unrelentingly cynical tone, but I’m glad
that reviewing a book requires that you read it. As for humour, it’s not the laugh out loud
kind of funny, but the narrator has a very darkly clever turn of phrase. It grows on you. You keep waiting and hoping for her
redemption. Does she find it? Well, I’ll leave that for you as the reader
to decide for yourself.
The narrator,
Janine is living on an island just off Auckland where she is writing up the
stories of her ancestors. She’s in flight from a failed marriage and is
obsessed with her family history but there’s a good reason for this – faulty
genes as she sees it, one in particular that she suspects (50/50 chance) she
has inherited. And then there’s Jake, the builder who comes
over by boat, who is building a jetty for her.
And then sometimes the weather
cuts up rough and Jake has to stay overnight.
It is to this sanctuary, this part of the story that the narrator
returns as a rest almost between the reimagining of her ancestors stories, most
of which are pretty grim but fascinating.
I was glad too of the respite; I
enjoyed the gentle sexual tension brewing, a nice change of pace and tone.
She begins by
telling us about her mother Maggie and a near-drowning experience as a
schoolgirl. There is a reservoir and
her mother falls in, or is she pushed? Aha,
that lovely Gothic Kiwi thing going on.
And all the time, this faulty gene, this darkness pervades the story and
too, the less than satisfactory mother and daughter relationship. At times I didn’t fully understand it, and I
wanted more warmth, the narrator’s heart instead of her head. But oh, the ancestors’ stories... they are original, remarkable and gripping.
I think it was when Harry, the narrator’s
great, great, grandfather was introduced, that I became completely hooked. I was 40 pages in, so if you are an impatient
reader, it’s worth hanging in there.
The narrator digresses a lot (most cleverly) but it can be distracting. I was reminded of Kate Atkinson’s narrator in
‘Scenes behind the Museum’. Too, the
extent to which fate and happenstance impact on the ancestor’s stories, it also
reminded me of Sebastian Faulks’ ‘A Possible Life’. And
too, closer to home, I’m reminded of aspects of Charlotte Randall’s ‘The
Curative’.
I like this right
at the start... “What we’ve learnt is that we’re all made to the same
pattern. Knitted up like a thrifty
housewife’s sock from scraps – random unravelled bits of yarn that used to make
someone else, chance combinations from the hand-me-down wardrobes of dead
strangers.”
And I like this,
when Janine is talking about her failed marriage. “Greg was good for me. Everybody said so. And I could feel it myself. I was smoother with him, more finished
off. He made such a neat job of hiding
my rough edges. I ran him round my life
like a tube of No More Gaps and I was very grateful.”
And then,
reluctantly, nearer to the end I found myself in Bergen-Belsen. I didn’t want
to be there and I usually nowadays try to avoid such stories, having perhaps
over-dosed on them when I was younger out of curiosity, but there I was, the same
way that Sebastian Faulks took me in ‘A possible Life’, unexpectedly and
shockingly and yet too entirely absorbingly, because it is done so well – but
be warned.
Although quite dark
at times, it is an absorbing and fascinating read. You can’t help but to be impressed with the
clever interweaving of medical science, war and history, and the sometimes
chillingly clinical observation of what it is to be human, the genes we
inherit. “(You know, some people can
smell hydrogen cyanide. Burnt almonds. It’s genetic apparently. Ask yourself how they know.)”... yes, in
brackets, just a lovely dark aside from the narrator.
This is the author’s
second novel, the first being ‘La Rochelle’s Road’ and I cannot compare because
I haven’t yet read that... although the media release for ‘Anticipation’
describes it as ‘quite different’ . Of
course now, as with all good writing, I’m interested to read her first novel,
to compare but I do know it received very good reviews.
Footnote:
Maggie Rainey-Smith (right) is a Wellington writer and regular reviewer on Beattie's Book Blog. She is also Chair of the Wellington branch of the NZ Society of Authors.
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