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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Deep in the woods: Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell

7/7/2015

6 Comments

 
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Two twelve-year-olds from separate states are abducted and kept for six weeks in a cabin in the woods. The girls are strangely compliant, fearful of what might happen but excited to be plucked from their neglectful parents and dreary lives. Spelling-bee champion, Lois, and beauty-pageant veteran, Carly-May, crave adult attention, and are thrilled to find themselves chosen, competing and cooperating for the approval of their kidnapper, the mysterious Zed.

Decades later, they know they’re damaged by the experience, although unsure exactly how. Lois has become a university lecturer, specialising in nineteenth century English literature, with a secret side-line as a writer of popular fiction. Carly-May has reinvented herself as Chloe, an actor too pretty to be taken seriously, still hankering after a more intellectually challenging part.

They haven’t met for years, their parents believing they’d recover better if kept apart. But, as Lois’s debut novel is about to be filmed, the women’s lives intersect once more. It’s a fictionalised version of the preteen girls’ abduction and Chloe can’t resist the offer of a rare serious role, in the form of the police officer whose attraction to the kidnapper conflicts with her capacity to do her job.

The boundary between fact and fiction is further clouded by the appearance of Sean, the troubled student who mysteriously gets under Lois’s skin. When he seems to know far too much about her, she’s convinced he’s Zed’s son, intent on revenge. Yet instead of reporting his stalking behaviour to the police, Lois encourages him, using him as the inspiration for her second novel, a sequel to Deep in the Woods. Like Chloe, Lois thinks she is the one in control. Like Chloe, Lois is unaware of her own fatal flaw.

I enjoyed this psychological thriller exploring the complex repercussions of a disturbing, yet strangely gratifying, childhood experience. Although generally suspicious of novels about writers and writing, I found this one to work really well, illustrating the ambiguity of the events and the fickleness of memory, and raising questions about the relationship between fiction and life. While maintaining the page-turning momentum of a thriller, Pretty Is doesn’t compromise on the deeper psychological issues of ambivalent attachment, petty rivalries, celebrity and the legacy of a far-too-interesting childhood. Congratulations to Maggie Mitchell and my thanks to Orion books for my advance proof copy.

The setting, with the remote cabin in the forest, has echoes of Claire Fuller’s debut, Our Endless Numbered Days, which has just been awarded the Desmond Elliott prize. But I was also taken by the thematic parallels between Pretty Is and my own forthcoming debut, Sugar and Snails. Although a little older than the abducted girls when she has her own life-changing experience, my narrator, Diana, is similarly both attracted to and repulsed by the memory and, to quote the blurb, “can’t help scratching at her teenage decision like a scabbed wound”. Like Lois, she becomes an academic, hiding her secret past from colleagues while reliving it through her work (in Diana’s case via psychological research rather than fiction). Both characters are disturbed by a troubled student, although Megan is less threatening than Sean. On a more trivial level, both novels feature an irritating (to the narrators) minor character called Fiona. Although not a thriller, I hope readers will enjoy Sugar and Snails as much as I’ve enjoyed Pretty Is.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
geoff link
7/7/2015 04:13:39 pm

This sounds like a grand read - as I know S&S is and will be. The idea of fictionalising a real event that has had a deep if unexpected impact is an interesting one. Thanks for the review Anne

Reply
Annecdotist
12/7/2015 11:38:55 am

Thanks, Geoff, although I do think that fictionalising a real event that had deep impact is what a lot of novelists do – even if sometimes they don't realise it.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
9/7/2015 07:01:03 am

Hi Anne, It's taken me a little longer than I had hoped to get back to my computer to comment.
My immediate reaction to your review was one of puzzlement. I wondered why two twelve-year old girls from two different states would be abducted and kept in the same cabin in the woods, why they would see it as being "rescued" from neglectful parents, and why the parents of a spelling bee champion and a beauty pageant winner would be neglectful in the first place. Surely they must have given the girls some support to reach the pinnacle of their fields. It seems to me that, in those roles, there must have been quite a bit of attention given. Surely it could not have been more negative than that of a kidnapper removing them from all they knew. I also wondered about the intentions of the kidnapper, especially when the girls did not seem to think it was that great an ordeal; and why their "neglectful" parents would want to make a decision about keeping the girls apart once released from their captive situation. They were from different states anyway. I also wondered how they were released. And so my questions continued as I read your review. I guess the answers are probably provided in the book and you would not want to spoil too much for the reader.
The part of your review which most intrigued me about this book was that you said the it does not compromise on the deeper psychological issues. Coming from you that is a mighty fine compliment. You don't give praise like that lightly.
Then of course, I was most interested to read the similarity to your book, which I am very much looking forward to reading, if I can ever get time at the computer to do so. (Not long now until I can download my own Kindle version!) That is definitely on the top of my TBR list! :)

Reply
Annecdotist
12/7/2015 11:49:20 am

Good questions, Norah, some of which would be answered by reading the book, but it's possible my review has skewed it in a particular way.
Zed had targeted the girls based on these successes (other weren't random kidnappings) from which he might have thought of himself as rescuing them. I think they entered the pageant and spelling competitions as a way of getting attention that wasn't available at home. Yes, at twelve, this can't have been without some parental involvement, especially for Carly-May, although it was her detested stepmother who took her to the pageants and I think the girl was trying to outdo her. For me, that's part of the insecure attachment and I think that it can often be the case that children appear to be enjoying performing at some activity but underneath it serves a function of not being ignored by their parents. I suppose a lot of celebrity is like that in a way. The attraction for the girls in Zed was partly that he was happy for them just to be, to play as kids but of course he was completely bonkers.
But now I'm rambling, so maybe you'll have to read it for yourself and see what you think. But not till you've finished Sugar and Snails!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
14/7/2015 11:07:01 pm

Yes! I must get your - I mean my - priorities right!
Thanks for the added clarification. It makes more sense to me now, but I'd probably have to read the book to fully "get it". Can't give too much away or the reader won't read. :)

Annecdotist
19/7/2015 01:14:36 am

I didn't mean to dictate your priorities! But I suppose it's possible you still might not 'get' it if you were to read it if it doesn't fit with your worldview – but I'd be interested to see!


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