'I've always considered my self to be basically a lucky person'. So says the narrator Toby Hennessy in the first sentence of this extraordinarily immersive standalone novel by Tana French. The rest of the book's 500 pages set out to deconstruct Toby's image of himself. An only child, born into a comfortably well-off middle class family, Toby has sailed through life feeling sure all will always turn out well for him. At the age of 28 he is working as the PR representative of a successful Dublin art gallery. He has a smart car, an attractive flat and a beautiful, devoted girlfriend. But everything changes one night when, after an evening out with a couple of old friends, he wakes up to find his flat has been broken into by a couple of violent men who end up beating him to within an inch of his life. After two weeks in hospital in excruciating pain he is discharged, but remains dependent on painkillers and Xanax, severely damaged both mentally and physically. One hand and a leg don't work properly, and, worst of all. Toby's memories are no longer reliable. He's gone from a carefree successful young man to a physical and mental wreck:
My own life blurred and smeared in front of my eyes; my outlines had been scrubbed out of existence (and how easily it had been done, how casually, one absent swipe in passing) so that I bled away at every margin into the world.
Anxious about his welfare, his family suggests he goes to stay at The Ivy House, where his Uncle Hugo lives alone. This will be beneficial for both Toby, who is not capable of living by himself, and Hugo, who has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. So Toby and Melissa move in to this house, which is fraught with memories from his earlier life:
The Ivy House, twilight hide-and-seek among the moths and the silver birches, wild-strawberry picnics and gingerbread Christmases, endless teenage parties with everyone lying on the grass gazing up at the stars…
For Toby belongs to a large and close-knit family. In addition to his father and Hugo there are two other brothers, whose offspring, Susanna and Leon, are pretty much the same age as Toby. The cousins have spent so much time together growing up that Toby considers them as practically siblings. The habit of getting together for family Sunday lunches continues, and during one of them a shocking discovery is made - one of Susanna's small children finds a human skull inside the huge wych elm tree in the garden. It soon transpires that there's a whole skeleton inside the tree, and, moreover, one that is only about ten years old. Enter the police, who make a series of uncomfortable visits during which it seems that Toby is the prime suspect. And, with his unreliable memory, he fears this may indeed be the case.
So yes, this is a psychological thriller, but one with a difference. Unreliable narrators are always interesting but here is one who is unreliable to himself, and thus a fascinating creation. During the course of the police interviews, and increasingly in conversations with Susanna and Leon, Toby discovers that he has completely misinterpreted much of the social interaction that went on during their adolescence. Astonishing secrets are revealed and Toby is forced to question many of his firmly held beliefs. As Hugo wisely tells him, one gets into the habit of being oneself. It takes some great upheaval to crack that shell and force us to discover what else might be underneath.
The novel is something of a slow burn, but that's all to the good. And in case the reader is wondering if there's going to be any action - yes indeed there is, as a very shocking development comes near the end of the book and has huge repercussions for Toby's future.
This is the first Tana French novel I've read, though many years ago I attempted her first, In the Woods, which I read very little of before giving up. I'm now going to go back to it with my new understanding what an amazing writer she is. Stephen King, who admires her work, says she transcends the crime genre and should be thought of an author of literary fiction. Certainly this novel comes into that category, for the use of language alone but also for the fine, perceptive way she handles her characters and their interactions. Brilliant.
