"I am not the person I thought I was when I woke this morning."
This is an utterly absorbing read, so much so that I bought it at 3:00 in the afternoon, attended to my pregnant fiancee who is now 12 days overdue for most of the evening and still finished it, here, at 1 o'clock the next morning.
As a debut novel, it's almost perfect, so deep and engaging on so many levels that it's hard to believe the author hasn't been writing professionally for years. The first half or so had that great, muted tension feel of a modern British work; without the lackadaisical assertions of a more traditional British thriller, and perhaps more importantly, without the barrage of characters and places an American work might ordinarily introduce.
"I feel like a prospective tenant being shown around a new flat. A possible housemate."
The story is, of course, a little contrived and I'll not pretend I didn't see some major plot points coming very early on. That can be put down to experience, either too much on my part or not enough on Watson's, but it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of what is, honestly, a superbly presented thriller, wrapped in a mystery, surrounded by the machinations of an amnesiac.
"fucking the husband is one thing, but I could never wear another woman's shoes."
The little details impressed me also - answering machines still using tape, for instance, or the idea of image manipulation not even entering Christine's mind because of her memory loss.
The journal she keeps and the ambience, the very milieu of it and by extension the novel as a whole rings so true to life that you can accept without hesitation that "This book was inspired in part by the lives of several amnesiac patients," just as the author's note says. What's here is a stunning, fictional story, with the plot points so carefully picked from experience, not just research, that the whole thing takes on a life of its own.
One passage in particular stuck in my mind, not for the specific words used, but for the images it conjures. On page 203 (part 10, 19 November) Christine recollects her attack, and there's this great montage of description about how she can't make out the face of her attacker, and how there are two of him above her, pushing down on her, shoving her into this psychological morass she's been trapped in for years since. It's an effect I've heard on television shows, this blurring of the image, the shifting voices so we can't tell who's doing the harm. I've never seen it set down in writing before. It may be as common as anything, visually, but never having been able to see a television programme or movie depicting something like this (and yet knowing they must employ similar methods) struck a chord in me, somehow. I felt at home, reading it, as if it were something I already knew about - as a literary device, if nothing else (I haven't personal experience of strangling and drowning someone, honest).
Finally, it wasn't until mention of a pier on page 302 that I clicked where we were, as the story enters the final act. That feeling, that adrenaline rush of knowing, or at least having an impression of what was going to happen - that's what makes the buying of a book worth it for me. The point where you've followed along and been engrossed and then the light switch clicks, the bulb comes on, and you get that great jolt that something's about to happen. It doesn't matter if I'm write or wrong about what that something is, of course - that's not the point and if I knew for a certainty every time there'd be no point in finishing the book. But that an author has written well enough for you to not only stick with it but be a part of it hallmarks the very best of writing. To S J Watson, I say this. More. Please. I hope the film does what you hope. I'll be keeping an eye out for your name in the future.
To the publishers or producers or whomever, I also must extend a thank you. I bought an EPub version of this book, and the attention to detail inside (so much so that I could easily find page numbers for specific passages) is very much appreciated.
