Before I begin, I must make a confession to my more on-top-of-things colleagues here at the LBC (and to the many readers of this site): I had not heard of Case Histories prior to its nomination. While I do not like to disparage my living space, there are days when it does indeed resemble a cave. This is important to mention because I believe I am the target audience of this book. Even more to the point, I polled approximately twenty voracious readers/friends on this title and drew only blank stares. Which is why I'm going to talk about the merits of this book, from my perspective.
Wow! It feels good to get that out in the open.
After reading Case Histories and then sitting back in my cave (or rather sunny backyard), I remain undecided on the nature of this novel. It is either a genre (crime/mystery) novel with literary aspirations or a literary novel with genre aspirations. Kate Atkinson hews closely to crime fiction conventions, right down to her hard-luck detective, but doesn't fully cross the line, as evidenced by her morally ambiguous ending. Whether or not justice is served is something she trusts her reader to decide.
Atkinson's story revolves around three crimes: a revered child disappears from her home, never to be found; a worshipped daughter is killed in a seemingly random moment, and the killer escapes in the ensuing panic; a young mother, unable to cope with her lack of daily structure, regains her much-needed control thanks to murderous violence. Each crime is connected, years after the fact, through Jackson Brodie, an investigator hired by the various survivors seeking closure.
Though Jackson's detective work bring some resolution to each story, motives and methods behind the crimes are revealed through shifting points of view. Each character offers a piece of information to the reader. Atkinson peels back the layers of each crime, allowing the us to become the detective. If there is a flaw in Atkinson's carefully constructed plot, it is that her adherence to her structure lessens the impact of the final surprise -- you feel it coming.
Like all outstanding genre fiction, the strength of this book is in the writing. It is a given that the crimes will be solved. Knowing the ending isn't sufficient reason to forego conversation with my husband -- it was the depth of the characters that had me picking up the book whenever he left the room for more than ten seconds. I wanted to see how they emerged from their numbness. I wanted to see how they saved themselves; Jackson Brodie wasn't going to do that for them. When Theo Wyre finally sees the truth of his mourning, I believed in his transformation. Granted, I didn't quite buy Amelia Land's emergence from her grief, but I think Atkinson's handling of this character left her with few choices. I can't decide if I'm just overly picky or if this was a writer who didn't know where to go next, especially given where she'd gone before.
Revelations about the various characters are slipped gracefully into the narrative. Facts emerge organically rather than as paint-by-numbers character traits. Through one line here, one thought there, you learn each character's truths. This makes certain information all the more unsettling, especially as the truth about the Land family is revealed. Truly fucked up people, if I may say so. Other revelations have an especially appealing slyness: Caroline, in ruminating about the sexual proclivities of the upper-class landed British in her sphere, reveals more about herself than she'd prefer.
While I believe that the structure and conventions of genre fiction are liberating (I talk more about the structure of this novel over at Booksquare because I find it fascinating from a writer's perspective; here, I want to focus on my reaction as a reader), I also derive great pleasure when an author smudges the edges of convention, sometimes to the point where lines are wholly obliterated. Had Atkinson chosen to make the mysteries more straightforward, the book would have been a really good read, but not compelling on the same level. Little things moved the story outside of its genre, like Jackson's decision to drop one case because he found his client's morals to be unacceptable.
If Kate Atkinson is a superstar in her own world, she's still a new-to-me (and now my friends) author. As my to-be-read stack(s) attest, keeping up with the Literary Joneses is a near impossibility. Far too many titles slip passed me -- this is why I'm especially happy that Case Histories surfaced*. It met my one major criteria for a great read: I wanted to devour and savor the words. At the same time. I am curious about the upcoming minority reports because I always wonder why something that works for me on so many levels doesn't for another reader. One would almost think we all have different taste.
* - I would be remiss if I neglected to mention that Case Histories is currently on sale at Powell's - 30% off.
How about an LBC member explaining what "literary aspirations" might be, rather than assuming we all know.
Posted by: Steve Mitchelmore | May 22, 2005 at 03:13 AM
I'm sure others have their own definitions, but to my way of thinking, each type of genre fiction has specific conventions. Literary fiction, while it can follow conventions of any and all genres, tends not to be bound the structural rules. Atkinson seemed to play with the boundaries of her genre just enough that it didn't truly feel like crime fiction to me. This was actually a pleasure because I like to be surprised when I read, and that doesn't happen very often.
Posted by: booksquare | May 22, 2005 at 08:53 AM
I am reading Case Histories right now and came across a sentence that has me stumped. On page 49 Atkinson writes "if ever there was an unnecessary tense it was the French subjunctive." I see three possibilities: this is a subtle grammatical joke; this is how British English actually works; Atkinson and her editors have committed one of the saddest lapses I can recall. (I suppose a fourth is that I am simply wrong about the sentence.) Anyone venture a guess as to which it is?
Posted by: Justus | May 22, 2005 at 10:15 AM
I took it as a subtle literary joke (which makes one wonder if there's such an animal as an overt literary joke). Of course, I am of the unpopular opinion that the English subjunctive is falling into disuse as part of the natural evolution of language.
Reagan Arthur, the book's US editor will be here next Thursday...we can ask her then (surely a trick grammar question is the best way to terrify an editor).
Posted by: booksquare | May 22, 2005 at 11:59 AM
'When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.'
-Philip Roth
Amen! Awomen ;-)
1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Never use a preposition to end a sentence with. Winston Churchill, corrected on this error once, responded to the young man who corrected him by saying "Young man, that is the kind of impudence up with which I will not put!
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies endlessly over and over again
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't always necessary and shouldn't be used to excess so don’t.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not always apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous and can be excessive
14. All generalizations are bad.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Avoid excessive use of ampersands & abbrevs., etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake (Unless they are as good as gold).
Czech out: http://www.creativeteachingsite.com/humorgrammar.htm
Posted by: Jozef Imrich | May 23, 2005 at 05:57 AM
This insightful essay cast light on several dark corners of the book world. Smudging the edges of genre convention may not make a book literary, but it is worth remembering that genres were created as a means of selling books, and are now regarded as a blueprint for writing them. Literary work travels in various disguises in order to be published, packaged and sold to an audience so thoroughly confused by the packaging they flee the bookstore. The time compression alluded to for avid readers describes another barrier for all new releases to leap over. Reading is a leisure activity. You have thirty seconds. Hurry up and read.
Posted by: David Thayer | May 24, 2005 at 06:23 AM
This is a wonderful site. The things mentioned are unanimous and needs to be appreciated by everyone.
Posted by: Health News | Mar 15, 2011 at 12:01 AM