First great novel of the new year.

Have you hugged your librarian yet today?

When I worked at my local public library, I had the pleasure of working with many well-informed and interesting people who did a lot of reading. (This is largely because I worked with other public service desk staff, who were invariably better read than individuals higher up the organization's food chain. But more on that another day.)

So when my co-worker posted a review of Catherine O'Flynn's debut novel What Was Lost at MadREADS and told me to read it, I took her seriously, even if it did take me a few months to get around to it.

It's a superlative novel. Kate Meaney, the kind of fictional ten-year-old kid that makes you dare to dream such real ten-year-olds exist, has a fledgling detective agency in 1980s Birmingham, Great Britain. She's also got a good friend, 22-year-old Adrian, who works in his father's shop in her neighborhood. Unfortunately, when Kate goes missing, Adrian is the last one to have seen her, and suspicion naturally falls on him.

Fast forward nearly twenty years, and the story turns to the actions of Kurt, a security guard at the mall where Kate often loitered, watching people, and Lisa, the younger sister of Adrian. They're leading normal enough lives of suburban and soulless work despair when Kurt changes both their lives by spotting what looks like a small lost girl on the mall's security cameras.

No quotes; the novel's more powerful in its entirety than in pieces. It's also completely sickening that it's O'Flynn's first novel: it's perfectly put together.

Katharine? If you're out there, thanks, hon. I owe you one. You are a librarian extraordinaire.

Comments

[Sandra]

I really liked this story too and thought the awards and nominations it got were well deserved.

[Citizen Reader]

Sandra,
Yes, I agree with you. This is a book that fully deserved the prize it got and the prize longlists it was on (although I think, as long as it was longlisted for the Booker Prize, it should have won it as well!).

[katharine]

you are welcome, non fiction book reviewer extraordinaire.

[lesbrarian]

***Comment contains plot spoilers***

Argh. Okay, I checked out the book because I liked your review, read it last night, and really didn't like it.

The premise was good. I confess I raced through the book because I was itching to find out what happened to Kate. I suppose I'm impressed with the way O'Flynn wrapped up everything, but she relied on far too many coincidences. The teenaged Kurt just happened to notice and remember a little girl enter a mall? The adult Kurt just happened to recovery that memory twenty years later, immediately before Lisa (the sister of Adrian, friend of the little girl) discovered the little girl's stuffed monkey?

Good thing officer Teresa, whose life was saved by that same little girl, happened to be there to sort through Kurt's story! Whew!

That's a secondary quibble, however. I'll suspend a lot of disbelief for books I like. "What Was Lost" doesn't make the cut for me because of two more serious problems:

1. The characters are flat. Our hero Kate is interesting, but the "precocious but lonely little girl" character has been done to death. At least Kate had some depth, even if it was in a predictable way. Can't say the same for Lisa's boyfriend Ed. Lazy adult male with no ambitions leaches off girlfriend, works at dead-end job, and-- oooh boy, did you see this coming?--- plays video games all day long.

2. It's Literary Fiction. There are shining exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, I don't like Literary Fiction because you see the same damn theme over and over and over again: "Hurry up and find people you love and a job you love, because if you don't life will really suck and you won't be happy!"

3. And if we have to endure this theme yet again, does it have to be so bleeding obvious? Whatever happened to subtlety? Witness Kurt: He had a domineering father, so he grows up under his thumb. Okay, this sucks. I feel sorry for Kurt. I feel for sorry for Kurt when I read the anecdote about how Mean Domineering Father went medieval on some teenaged boys. Very awkward for Kurt.

But then, because apparently O'Flynn thinks her reading audience is a bit dim, she follows the anecdote with this horribly obvious summary:

"Kurt had never worked out whether he was embarrassed or proud of his father's actions that day, and yet this memory had lodged in his mind."

Yes, I know that, we just read about it.

"It seemed to capture the essence of who he had thought his father had been: frightening, decisive, moral."

I get it, already, I get it. And just in case I don't:

"[Kevin] realized now that he'd been wrong to think he knew him and foolish to let this assumed knowledge shape his life."

Pretty unimpressive for an epiphany. But on the off chance that the message didn't sink in for the reader, shortly thereafter we hear from Kurt's mother, who "worried about Kurt... He was too like her, too worried about his father's approval, wasting his life trying for something that didn't exist."

Also I'm miffed because there were a few tantalizing genre moments ("Hey! Maybe this is actually a ghost story!... No, wait, no, it's a Thriller!") but in the final analysis it was really just Literary Fiction.

[lesbrarian]

Kurt, I mean, not Kevin. Need more coffee if I want to avoid conflating male names that begin with K.

On names that begin with K: I just realized that the story's main character, Kate, has a name that is derivative of the author's name, Catharine. That makes me nervous. Are we supposed to infer that Kate-- easily the most likable, enjoyable character in the novel00 is a version of the author?

Another beef-- lots of the events were predictable. I surmised that the suicide in the car was Adrian well before the author told me so. I knew early on that Gavin was the one whodunnit. It was a classic case of the Scooby Doo syndrome: since the police's suspect, Adrian, was too obvious, the real perpetrator must be someone else. By process of elimination, that leaves us with only one possibility, the creepy surveillance-fiend with the checkered past who's been at the mall since it opened.

I'll be quiet now.

[Citizen Reader]

Lesbrarian!
I LOVE the dissenting opinion. Particularly the dissenting opinion that is so well-argued. I think all of your points make sense, and I'm fascinated that you knew whodunnit and what happened that early on. I completely shut my brain off when I read fiction, I think, and never know whodunit--unless, as I usually do with genre fiction, I read the last chapter right after the first chapter.

I'll admit I did like Kate and was sorry when she was no longer "in" the story; perhaps I don't read enough fiction to be scared off by the precocious little girl character (particularly when she's a rather likeable precocious little girl, I thought). What you say about the rest of the characters being flat, I can see that.

But here's my question.It seems like you don't like predictability, or character stereotypes. Isn't that largely what genre fiction depends upon? Good guys win out in the end, very few protagonists die (unless you're reading George R.R. Martin), stereotypical characters?

Thanks for the anti-review; I loved it. It just goes to show we all have our weaknesses--I have one for lit fic by British authors, and I should remember that others have weaknesses for "women's fiction" like Jodi Picoult. I'll try and remember, honest!

[Citizen Reader]

And I'm sorry you didn't like it--I hate to waste anyone's reading time. Better luck next time!

[lesbrarian]

I've been thinking about this all day, and I still don't have a clear answer to your question about predictability. I lambasted it in this novel, and yet I love fluffy fantasies and space operas, two genres that are about as predictable as it gets.

I'm just speculating here, but it seems like the point of conventional genre books is that they ARE conventional. People read romances because they know they'll be rewarded with a happily ever after. I read fantasies because I like it when good triumphs over evil, and because I like effete elves and belligerent dwarves. The writers may change but the characters are the same. It's comforting.

(And when I do want something less comforting, I turn to George R' Us Martin or China Mieville or Neal Asher.)

Literary Fiction, on the other hand, seems to exist specifically to counter the conventions for which genre fiction is derided. LiFi authors write their books to express a message and to provoke thought and to develop characters. These actions can all happen within the realm of genre, but I suppose some writers would feel silly trying to write about racism or human tragedy or somesuch if there were dragons floating about in the background.

So okay, I can appreciate that. Or maybe some Literary writers just don't want to write genre books, as a matter of personal taste. Whatever the reason, Literary Fiction (normally) divests itself of genre elements and digs deep into the the human experience.

None of this I mind on principle. What I do mind is Literary Fiction that claims to be superior or important or profound if, in fact, it is none of these things.

Now I'm not aware that O'Flynn has made any of these claims-- and actually, to judge by her afterward, she doesn't take herself too seriously. What I do mind is unwarranted fawning by critics.

At the very least, if the critics are going to fall all over themselves talking about how important a book is, they should remember to look at genre books, too...

...which they just did, by awarding the Newbery to Neil Gaiman's novel The Graveyard Book. And now, having significantly undermined my own argument, I am going to once again be quiet.

[lesbrarian]

And--- I know I've mentioned this to you before, but I think you might want to try A Prayer for Owen Meany. I know you're not a John Irving fan, so I'll make a deal with you: read the first chapter, and if it's not floating your boat, I'll never pester you about it again.

One of the many, many reasons I like the novel is that it is completely unpredictable. There's a case of whodunnit (or rather, who fathered it) that I didn't see coming, try as I might. And though there's a ton of foreshadowing, it is done with such panache that you still get taken by surprise, no matter how you try to predict what the clues mean.

Irving is not British but he is Canadian, and I know you have the same weakness for Canada that I do.

Yesterday I finished David Sanger's The Inheritance, and up next for me is Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. Aren't you proud of all the nonfiction I'm reading?

[Citizen Reader]

Dearest Lesbrarian,
Hmm, lots to think about here. Yes, part of the joy of genre is predictability. I can't think, then, why I don't love it more, as I am a slave to routine and master of all things repetitive. I mean, I do like genre books. I'll read chick lit and fantasy and all that stuff--but it definitely can't be all or even the majority of what I read.

There's also much to consider here regarding lit fic diving into the human experience. Lit Fic is such a troublesome label anyway. What is it? Anything non-genre? I would never in a million years call Jodi Picoult lit fic, but what else would you call her? Maybe what we need is some more genre headings--much like "women's fiction," although it hurts me to link anything as crappy as Picoult with "women" in general. Also: must something be important to be lit fic? I think Anne Tyler's books are about as non-important as they come, yet I love her and would term her lit fic.

Slippery. All very slippery.

And--I just remembered something else--come on, wasn't the music store exchange in this novel enjoyable? (You know, where the customer has been searching for twenty years for a song, the worker identifies it and finds it on numerous CDs, and then the customer still isn't happy and wants it on a cheaper single? That tickled me.)

And okay, okay, I have just requested "Prayer for Owen Meany." I will get back to you. I AM proud of all that NF reading of yours--how was "The Inheritance"? And good luck with the Sarah Vowell--I just brought The Wordy Shipmates home the other day and am interested to see how it goes--I've never been a huge Vowell fan bu maybe this is the one that'll turn it around.