I'd Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman
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This is Laura Lippman's latest mystery/thriller, and it seems like it was a breakthrough novel for her. Although she's written maybe 10 novels previously, I heard people talking about this one a lot more, and I even saw her on the Craig Ferguson show. She was very smart and charming! Since it has been years since I read her first novel, Baltimore Blues, I thought I'd try this one. (Some slight spoilers are ahead, but nothing major.)
First of all, it's a treat to read a really good novel set in my own region. A lot of the action takes place within a ten-mile radius of my house in Columbia---Patapsco State Park, Route 40, the Fair Lanes bowling alley, Wilde Like High School, Ellicott City. When I started reading it, though, I almost gave up about a fourth of the way through. It was okay, but not great. And I probably would have stopped reading except that I'd just done the same thing with three other books and I decided I had to finish a book.
I'm really glad I kept reading.
First the bad: The story is about a woman, Eliza, who was abducted as a teenager by a young man who murdered all his other victims. This abductor, Walter, is now on Death Row and wants to correspond with Eliza. He's aided by a disturbed woman named Barbara who has become involved in the anti-death penalty movement and has gotten involved with several men in prison. Barbara confronts Eliza at her child's school and in her neighborhood, trying to secure her cooperation with Walter.
Eliza desperately wants to avoid the spotlight. She doesn't want her friends and acquaintances to know about her past, and she doesn't want her children to know until they are older. And Eliza decides that the best way to avoid entanglement is to . . . engage him. She writes him a letter, and a correspondence begins. I can accept a plot that is based on one unbelievable turn, but the plot here required that she keep making the same iffy decision over and over again. After she writes, he wants to call her . . . so she has a phone installed with a dedicated number so that he can call without using the main family line. And then he wants to see her in person, and she complies. Lippman does provide reasons for her willingness to engage him: She thinks she might be able to get him to reveal the names and whereabouts of his other victims, and she also wants to know why she was the only one he let go. But these motivations are offset by her extreme desire for privacy and for not becoming part of his story again. This contradiction was a stumbling block for me, especially after reading The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker and knowing what truly bad decisions these were.
Despite this issue, the characters were really well drawn. Lippman includes characters with every possible relationship to the crime: the sister who resents the attention and accommodations the family makes for Eliza; the mother of Holly, Walter's last victim, who is a simmering pot of hatred for the world and Eliza alike; Peter, Eliza's husband, who is a good man and remains a good man throughout. It's rewarding to see a strong marriage portrayed as such. Usually in fiction and film, if a strong marriage is portrayed at all, it's shown as enduring despite some awful defects (I'm talking to you, The Kids Are All Right). And Eliza is a quiet and accommodating character, something that others routinely interpret as spinelessness. But she knows the difference.
Most memorable were Walter and the mother of Holly. Walter for his chaotic mind. Holly's mother for her burning anger, the fallout from believing that she was right where she was supposed to be, at the top of the heap of luck and happiness, only to be gut-punched by fate. She's a spitfire of fury, but it's for the loss of a deeply beloved daughter. So it feels right and admirable in some way, though I wouldn't recommend it for the real world.
-
This is Laura Lippman's latest mystery/thriller, and it seems like it was a breakthrough novel for her. Although she's written maybe 10 novels previously, I heard people talking about this one a lot more, and I even saw her on the Craig Ferguson show. She was very smart and charming! Since it has been years since I read her first novel, Baltimore Blues, I thought I'd try this one. (Some slight spoilers are ahead, but nothing major.)
First of all, it's a treat to read a really good novel set in my own region. A lot of the action takes place within a ten-mile radius of my house in Columbia---Patapsco State Park, Route 40, the Fair Lanes bowling alley, Wilde Like High School, Ellicott City. When I started reading it, though, I almost gave up about a fourth of the way through. It was okay, but not great. And I probably would have stopped reading except that I'd just done the same thing with three other books and I decided I had to finish a book.
I'm really glad I kept reading.
First the bad: The story is about a woman, Eliza, who was abducted as a teenager by a young man who murdered all his other victims. This abductor, Walter, is now on Death Row and wants to correspond with Eliza. He's aided by a disturbed woman named Barbara who has become involved in the anti-death penalty movement and has gotten involved with several men in prison. Barbara confronts Eliza at her child's school and in her neighborhood, trying to secure her cooperation with Walter.
Eliza desperately wants to avoid the spotlight. She doesn't want her friends and acquaintances to know about her past, and she doesn't want her children to know until they are older. And Eliza decides that the best way to avoid entanglement is to . . . engage him. She writes him a letter, and a correspondence begins. I can accept a plot that is based on one unbelievable turn, but the plot here required that she keep making the same iffy decision over and over again. After she writes, he wants to call her . . . so she has a phone installed with a dedicated number so that he can call without using the main family line. And then he wants to see her in person, and she complies. Lippman does provide reasons for her willingness to engage him: She thinks she might be able to get him to reveal the names and whereabouts of his other victims, and she also wants to know why she was the only one he let go. But these motivations are offset by her extreme desire for privacy and for not becoming part of his story again. This contradiction was a stumbling block for me, especially after reading The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker and knowing what truly bad decisions these were.
Despite this issue, the characters were really well drawn. Lippman includes characters with every possible relationship to the crime: the sister who resents the attention and accommodations the family makes for Eliza; the mother of Holly, Walter's last victim, who is a simmering pot of hatred for the world and Eliza alike; Peter, Eliza's husband, who is a good man and remains a good man throughout. It's rewarding to see a strong marriage portrayed as such. Usually in fiction and film, if a strong marriage is portrayed at all, it's shown as enduring despite some awful defects (I'm talking to you, The Kids Are All Right). And Eliza is a quiet and accommodating character, something that others routinely interpret as spinelessness. But she knows the difference.
Most memorable were Walter and the mother of Holly. Walter for his chaotic mind. Holly's mother for her burning anger, the fallout from believing that she was right where she was supposed to be, at the top of the heap of luck and happiness, only to be gut-punched by fate. She's a spitfire of fury, but it's for the loss of a deeply beloved daughter. So it feels right and admirable in some way, though I wouldn't recommend it for the real world.
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