The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox centers on 3 women and spans two different time periods. Much of it is quite disjointed (purposefully so I reckon) and there's quite a bit of jumping around between points of view and time periods. And there are no chapter breaks so this flip flopping is accomplished through page breaks instead. The reader follows Iris, Esme, and Kitty in the present day as well as their remembrances of past events. Iris is a young woman running a secondhand clothing store who has a very unusual romantic life. (I thought about adding this to the trigger warning at the bottom but in the end decided not to. You'll have to read the book for yourself to see if you agree with my decision.) Kitty is Iris's grandmother who is suffering from Alzheimer's and living in a nursing home. Her POV is full of jumbled and incomplete recollections from her past. Many of those revolve around her sister Esme who is certainly billed as the primary character but is the one I feel like I didn't fully comprehend. I'm afraid of giving too much away but since this is in the blurb I feel like it's okay to tell you that when we meet Esme in the present day she has been locked away in a psychiatric hospital for SIXTY-ONE YEARS. Let that sink in for a moment. O'Farrell is clearly looking to start a discussion about the injustices women suffered not so long ago when they were shut away in these institutions by their families for infractions like crying too much, talking back to their husbands, or disobedience to their parents. (I'd be in a lot of trouble if I lived back then.) I've read other books that delve into the topic of wrongful imprisonment in mental facilities (one book was nonfiction and written by a reporter who disguised herself as a patient) but none where the patient was away for so long before being released.
I picked this one up solely because I loved O'Farrell's writing in Hamnet and I wanted more of that delicious prose. This is one of her earlier works and so has a very different literary style (I'm now thinking this could be deliberate because of the subject matter). This hasn't put me off exploring more of her writing in the least. I honestly don't know if I can say that I either liked or disliked The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. It's one of those books that when you close the cover you say aloud, "What was that?". So because I'm on the fence I'm giving this one a 5/10. 😬
Trigger warning: sexual assault and enforced imprisonment.
Read this from O'Farrell about her experience researching this topic and the reaction to the book.
What I'm currently reading: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
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