Review – The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrel (Amazon Barnes and Noble)

I picked up this book in the bargain piles of Barnes and Noble. It looked fairly interesting, and if it wasn’t, eh, I paid like four bucks for it. No big loss. Well, I can’t say how glad I am I bought this book. The critics aren’t lying when they say this is one riveting, haunting read. The book tells the story of two sisters and their descendants, now reduced to one granddaughter, Iris. The story revolves around the psychosis of the two sisters, Kitty – lost in the fog of Alzheimer’s, and Esme – trying to function in a new reality after 60+ years locked away in a mental asylum.

Iris is the rock between these two, though a crumbling one at best. She’s had a chaotic life, mostly in reaction to the love felt between her and her “step-brother” (I quote that because their parents, though possibly married for a time, did not remain together for long, and thus I was not in the slightest disturbed by this love, as the two met when they were no longer babies and really only grew up as brother-sister in the eyes of a small few, and certainly not in each others eyes. The author actually makes a bit more of a deal about this “impossible” love than I felt necessary; it was interesting and intriguing, heartbreaking, annoyingly unresolved in the end, but all in all, it could have been omitted with no serious setbacks to the story.) Iris’ relationship troubles don’t end there, however, she also happens to be sleeping with a married man who wants to push a bit more commitment on her than she would like. And while it was odd seeing Iris as the supposedly steady one, thrown between her grandmother and great-aunt and their oddities, it still seemed to work.

I mentioned heartbreaking before, and that is the one word, if I had to choose, that I would use to describe this book. In the beginning, it’s slightly sad, full of the tragedies of these girls’ lives, and at that point, you still don’t really know what those tragedies really are. They’re only hinted at, related to the reader through the wandering thoughts of an Alzheimer’s patient, spotty and jumpy, and the eccentric thoughts of somebody who was locked away and abandoned by those she loved. The Alzheimer’s prose was sad for me because it’s a great fear of mine, for both myself and my family. I cannot imagine anything worse than having your memories abandon and betray you, nor how hard it must be for both the afflicted and those close to them. O’Farrell did a beautiful job writing Kitty’s thoughts, bouncing between events, entering a story in the middle, cutting off to begin a new thread … it was a scary yet interesting insight into the mind of one afflicted with the terrible disease. It also was a wonderful way to give hints of the major plot points that are revealed later, so you get an idea of what really happened so long ago, but you can’t be quite sure, mainly because Kitty herself isn’t quite sure anymore.

As for Esme, her story was truly heartbreaking. With parts of the story told through her eyes, you can see how she thinks. In her youth, she was really just a little eccentric, more headstrong and willful than a girl was wanted to be in those days (the book is set in Scotland, with Kitty and Esme growing up in the 20s and 30s.) In fact, she is committed for reasons that nowadays would make the doctors laugh. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that if Esme had experienced what she had in a later time period, she would have simply needed a little therapy, just somebody to talk to her and help her understand what it was she was going through as an adolescent – or even just a more understandng parent, or more understanding from society as a whole. But being in the time she was, she was considered demented, high-strung, willful, without prospects (prospects being of course, marriage and family). And as she grows up chafed by the tedious life of the European lady in the 30s and hiding her boredom poorly, all it takes is one traumatic experience, a little crying (to be expected), some yelling (also justified) and poof – she vanishes. She is sent away by her family, forcefully forgotten, never to be seen again. Kitty becomes an only child.

And in a sad, but by this point, slightly predictable turn of events (yes Stephanie, even for me), we discover all sorts of delicious closet skeletons this family has been hiding for generations, never even letting a hint of bone peek out. But as those things tend to do, it eventually comes to light, and we discover it all right along with Iris. The actual truth is never exactly written out, more insinuated, leaving it to the reader to either figure out what happened all those years ago, or realize they’re not quite as bright as O’Farrell would hope her readers are.

So, in conclusion, all I can really say is that I think this book should be read and enjoyed by all. Of course, I know that this sort of book won’t appeal to everybody, but for those who think they might enjoy this tale of family secrets revealed in the best way, I promise they won’t be disappointed. Well, not entirely, as I mentioned before, the love story between Iris and Alex, her step-brother, is sadly sweet throughout the book and therefore, annoyingly unresolved. I don’t really have any other complaints besides that one, and it’s a minor one at that, since the ending is more about the conclusion of the sisters’ stories – which again, is told in such a way that to the less bright readers out there, you might not know what the hell just happened until you ponder it a bit – than about the realization of this forbidden (but not really) love between Iris and Alex. And if the ending seems a bit abrupt … well, I’m sorry. Not really sorry of course, since I didn’t write it and there’s nothing I can do except sympathize. But in truth, it does end a bit abruptly, but it seemed to work alright as it makes me stop and think about the story I just made it through, going back over all the heartbreak in these women’s lives, comparing it to my own virtually non-existent troubles, and realizing that 1. it would suck indeed to have these things happen to you or your family and 2. damn, that was one great read … I wonder how they might adapt this into a Hallmark movie?