It’s a long while since I was so gripped by a book. I picked a good time to read this one, as I was unwell and not up to anything other than lying on the sofa and reading. The story is inspired by real events at the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum in New Zealand, where a fire burnt down one of the wards, with patients inside, in 1942. The name was familiar to me because the author Janet Frame, whose work I’ve read, was a patient there.
There are two narrative viewpoints in the novel. Edith, a long-term patient at the hospital, was committed as a child because she kept talking about her past life which came to a violent end. We have her perspectives as a child, as an adult before the fire, and after (she was one of two survivors). The other viewpoint is Declan, a young doctor who takes an interest in Edith and investigates her story, in a race against time because his superior has scheduled her for the trendy new operation which will turn her into a shell of a person.
While there are unpleasant things in this book which I’d rather not have read, the twist at the end was obvious, and the writing style included a lot of repeated gestures (all the characters lick their lips and narrow their eyes often), I thought this was a very good read with some fascinating topics, such as the treatment of mental health conditions and that young children remember details of their past lives but forget these as they get older. Recommended if you’re a fan of historical fiction crossed with thriller and a bit of the supernatural.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, 2020.