An emotional journey into the halcyon days of youth, and the crushing regret of past love and loss

This was my forty-ninth book I chose via the Reedsy Discovery program, for which I am the single approved reviewer for this new book. This review also appears on Reedsy.

If you’re interested in becoming a Reedsy reviewer (and have the chance to get paid “tips” to review books!) check it out here.

The Premise

Margaret and her husband Tom have lived for decades with the ghost of the woman they once both loved — Tom’s former girlfriend and Mags’ best friend, Susan. Susan suffered with “disease of the mind” in the 1970s, when shock therapy was a common treatment. Its legacy and the memory of Susan remain, though she is long gone. When her brother arrives with fresh news forty years later, the memories all come flooding back to them both — and most importantly, the guilt they both feel about being responsible for her death.

The Pros & Cons

This was an emotional journey into the halcyon days of youth, and the crushing regret of past love and loss.

This novel was unique and beautifully done. Told in alternating parts by Tom and his wife Margaret, the tale slowly unravels to reveal the shocking events of the past that led to the death of the person they both dearly loved, and the ghost that hovered over their marriage for the past forty years: Susan.

Part manic pixie dream girl, part free-love-era sex bombshell, Susan was the glue that held their little group together — until she died, and they never could quite recreate love in their own relationship formed from the ashes of her memory. They both felt responsible for her death — both the direct incident, as well as ignoring or glossing over the warning signs prior to it. Despite the decades they’ve been married, the daughter they raised, the family they built — Susan was always hovering on the peripheries, preventing them from ever attaining real happiness or true love and meaningful communication with each other.

I loved the way the past is uncovered layer by layer as we experience the “Susan effect” through both their eyes: Tom as a lover, and Margaret as her best friend. Ricocheting between child-like sweetness to vicious diatribes, Susan’s tragically exuberant personality leaps off the pages, propelling the reader to keep going to find out her story.

The prose is excellent and takes you on a journey through its lyrical words, fleshing out the pain and unbearable loss of someone who was the very fabric of their lives. Each character was gloriously imperfect in their own way, and the descriptive power of the writing paints them each perfectly, even the side characters like their other family members that only flit across the pages for a few moments.

There were truly shocking moments as the reader grapples to combine the past and the present, empathising with their pain and regret of the actions in their youth, yet at the same time critical of their deplorable actions as we wait for that moment of impending doom, as we already know what is about to happen to Susan.

To advise other readers, I should mention there were a few moments when I had to re-read as I got a bit lost between the character jumps (as they are not labelled), and the style of writing veers to the poetic which at times may be dense for some readers, but I truly enjoyed this style and only wish more writers took such care to treat words as their craft.

Conclusion

Overall, this was a novel that will stay with me. It feels like a text that can be dissected and explored for literary purposes, as there were many deep, profound issues it dealt with — love, loss, grief, mental illness, drug abuse, assault, communication, parenthood, marriage, and so much more. With so much bubbling below its surface, it was an enriching experience from beginning to end — deep, emotional, and moving. I would recommend to other readers, and I look forward to more of this writer’s work.

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