I like fiction that shows the characters at work, but it can be difficult to pull off convincingly. While approaching it from very different angles – British writer Lucy Atkins in a thriller about a highflying TV presenter and historian; American Helen Phillips in a satire about a data entry clerk – both have produced extremely satisfying reads.
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The Night Visitor by Lucy Atkins
At the launch party for her bestselling biography of one of the first female surgeons, Professor Olivia Sweetman is all smiles. A beautiful family, supportive friends and a successful career as both academic and TV personality, she seems to be living the dream. But she’s just discovered her marriage is a shambles, and her career is set to unravel if the truth gets out about the dodgy evidence on which the new book is based. For the moment, the only person who knows what she’s done is her informal research assistant, Vivian Tester, the socially awkward housekeeper of a Sussex manor house who found the Victorian diary on which her book is based. Although grateful for her invaluable contribution to the book, Olivia hasn’t enjoyed working with Vivian, and has looked forward to parting company at the project’s end. But Vivian has other ambitions and, with secrets shared and concealed from each other, the mutual bond is deeper than Olivia could imagine.
Switching between Vivian’s first person account and Olivia’s in the third person, the novel backtracks to the women’s first meeting through to the shocking climax at the manor house on the day after the launch. Positioned as a thriller in the domestic noir style, I actually found the pace a little slow in the middle, but I enjoyed it immensely approaching the end as Vivian emerges from the stereotype of lonely eccentric with odd compulsions (which is of course how Olivia sees her) to a complex character with an understandable grievance. It is she who experiences the “night visitor” in the form of a terrifying visual hallucination accompanied by sleep paralysis. Although we eventually discover the genesis of this disturbing experience, I found it a bit gimmicky and didn’t feel it served the more psychological aspects of the plot particularly well. On the other hand, I loved learning about dung beetles (especially as, having only ever seen them in Africa – twice – I had no idea they were so prevalent and important in the UK). Overall, I found it an easy and entertaining read addressing socially relevant topical issues such as celebrity, narcissism, female academics, hubris, self-deception and the nature of truth. Like The Life to Come, it’s a warning to all of us not to underestimate people who, on the surface, may seem colourless. Thanks to Quercus Books for my review copy. Although about friendship rather than work relationship, I was reminded of Her by Harriet Lane.
Switching between Vivian’s first person account and Olivia’s in the third person, the novel backtracks to the women’s first meeting through to the shocking climax at the manor house on the day after the launch. Positioned as a thriller in the domestic noir style, I actually found the pace a little slow in the middle, but I enjoyed it immensely approaching the end as Vivian emerges from the stereotype of lonely eccentric with odd compulsions (which is of course how Olivia sees her) to a complex character with an understandable grievance. It is she who experiences the “night visitor” in the form of a terrifying visual hallucination accompanied by sleep paralysis. Although we eventually discover the genesis of this disturbing experience, I found it a bit gimmicky and didn’t feel it served the more psychological aspects of the plot particularly well. On the other hand, I loved learning about dung beetles (especially as, having only ever seen them in Africa – twice – I had no idea they were so prevalent and important in the UK). Overall, I found it an easy and entertaining read addressing socially relevant topical issues such as celebrity, narcissism, female academics, hubris, self-deception and the nature of truth. Like The Life to Come, it’s a warning to all of us not to underestimate people who, on the surface, may seem colourless. Thanks to Quercus Books for my review copy. Although about friendship rather than work relationship, I was reminded of Her by Harriet Lane.
The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips
On the day Josephine finally gets a job after over a year unemployed, she and her husband are evicted from their apartment. Although the room they find to rent is shabby and grim, the couple are optimistic: they’re young and in love and living in the city. Soon, they hope, they’ll have a child. But Josephine’s job, alone in a shabby room with no windows, among several corridors of similar anonymous rooms whose occupants she rarely sees, checking names on a Database is dreadfully dispiriting. She doesn’t know the purpose of the organisation she works for – although there’s a clue it might be quite sinister – and her petty attempts to improve her work environment – such as sticking a calendar on the wall and going outside to eat her lunch – are not allowed.
But at least she can go home, eyes bloodshot from staring at the computer, to her loving husband. Until he fails to return from his own similarly ill-defined job, or respond to her increasingly frantic messages and texts. Then the next evening he’s back, with an unconvincing explanation of having to work. He seems different, more aggressive in his lovemaking; is their relationship going to the dogs?
Helen Phillips’ is a painfully poignant satire on alienation, poverty and the hypercapitalist culture that treats people like machines. I found it reminiscent of The Room, one of my favourite reads of 2016, and a psychoanalytic research carried out in the early days of computing addressing the stresses on data entry clerks performing a tedious repetitive task that nevertheless required a high level of accuracy. So sad that civilisation has failed to move on from that. But maybe it’s inevitable when life is an anagram of file. Thanks to Pushkin press for my review copy.
But at least she can go home, eyes bloodshot from staring at the computer, to her loving husband. Until he fails to return from his own similarly ill-defined job, or respond to her increasingly frantic messages and texts. Then the next evening he’s back, with an unconvincing explanation of having to work. He seems different, more aggressive in his lovemaking; is their relationship going to the dogs?
Helen Phillips’ is a painfully poignant satire on alienation, poverty and the hypercapitalist culture that treats people like machines. I found it reminiscent of The Room, one of my favourite reads of 2016, and a psychoanalytic research carried out in the early days of computing addressing the stresses on data entry clerks performing a tedious repetitive task that nevertheless required a high level of accuracy. So sad that civilisation has failed to move on from that. But maybe it’s inevitable when life is an anagram of file. Thanks to Pushkin press for my review copy.
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