What the dead know

I bought this book on the strength of the New York Times review. When I read the glowing reviews - and there were many of them - I wanted to buy it, but in Singapore, American hardbacks are incredibly expensive (this was over $40). So I kept staring at the copy in Borders on many visits, and waiting until the big discount was available and then I picked up the book that nobody else seemed interested in. Borders had brought in only one copy and it'd sat unmoving on the shelf, except for my occasional investigations.

I've never read any of Laura Lippman's books, so I didn't know her if her style was the usual crime and thriller fast-paced writing or the literary sort, sentences pregnant with suggestion and nuance. I'm happy to say that it's very literary: wonderful and evocative prose, carefully structured and flowing like a dream. The case involves the disappearance of two girls, two sisters taken during an outing at the mall. Years later, one of them reappears and throws the case wide open again. But she doesn't quite seem to be who she says she is (is anyone ever?). Lippman builds up characters like a sculptor, taking great pains to evince personality traits, histories, and deep, simmering emotions. Each character, not just the sisters, was interesting to me and there seemed a wealth of stories that could be told about each of them.

While reading, there were moments when I felt I was aloft and enjoying an excellent view of the community, gently and generously invited by the author to remain there watching, occasionally descending and moving close to the characters until the tempests of fear or rage within them became palpable. Despite what "knowingness" I thought I felt, my position was never higher than the level of the author herself, who knew everything, yet her voice was never smug. I was happy to observe and learn and guess.

And I managed to guess the identity of the mystery person because of a few small details. I'm glad I was right because I never get anything right when I guess the end of crime or mystery novels. Still, the circumstances behind the mystery were impossible to guess. But when all was revealed, it made perfect sense. Heartbreaking sense. I've never been so affected by the end of a book, especially a crime one. Perhaps because it was my mom's birthday the weekend I was reading that these lines stood out for me: "A parent is never happier than their unhappiest child."

Parts of the book reminded me of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, which focuses heavily on the family breaking down after the disappearance of a young woman. In What the dead know, two girls are taken (who takes two? many characters ask), and the parents are changed forever. Change is both internal and external. Time alters the town as well, and these altered landscapes reminded me how malleable our own appearances are, whether by our own hand or those of time and circumstance.

Posted by Monoceros at September 18, 2007 8:00 AM