This
is quite an exceptional debut novel, from a writer imbued with
confidence. Peter Williams catches the same bus to work as Sophie Taylor
each day. They barely know each, hardly acknowledge each other's
existence. Yet Peter will sometimes ask the bus driver to wait if Sophie
is late. Then, one day, Sophie breaks her routine, and gets off at the
railway station instead. Only Peter notices that she has dropped her
swipe card and the notebook that the she is always scribbling into.
Peter determines to return the notebook to her. Her flat is not far from
the bus stop, and Peter has sometimes even seen her hurrying to get to work
through her flat window, so he knows where she lives. His plan
is just to post it through her letterbox and to walk away. It won't seem
that strange, since she has written her name on the cover. Unfortunately,
when he goes to return the notebook, there is another man waiting outside her
flat, looking for her. Since the notebook looks to contain Sophie's
innermost private thoughts, Peter does not hand it over, even although the man,
Jamie Forester, says that he is a friend of Sophie's. To explain his
presence outside her front door, Peter says that he is also a friend of Sophie's.
Trouble is, as Jamie relates, Sophie has gone missing. Intrigued by this
mystery, Peter begins to read Sophie's notebook. He is disturbed to learn
that Sophie has recently been bothered by a series of silent phone calls,
both at work and at home. Although Jamie drinks in Peter's local, Peter
is reluctant to let him know anything that he has learnt from
the notebook, especially as it becomes clear that
Sophie believes that it is Jamie that has been ringing her. Jamie is
the obvious suspect, as despite being Sophie's best friend, his crush on her is
hardly secret, and besides, he is one of the few people that knows
both her work and home phone numbers. Peter finds it discomforting to be
approached by Jamie every so often, as Sophie is still missing, and is always
asking Peter to contact the police. He finds that his little white lie of
claiming to be Sophie's friend haunts him, yet he is more concerned than
anything else to find out where she could have got to.
Peter learns from the notebook that Sophie had run away before, but the reason
for her disappearance is unclear. Yet it may be related to a dangerous
secret that she shares with her brother, Jonathan. Peter becomes so
embroiled in Sophie's world that he is in danger of losing control of his
own life. His partner, Alison, notices that something is wrong, and
enlists Peter's best friend, Steve, in order to worm it out of him.
Peter's job is also getting quite stressful. Recently turned down for a
promotion, he is embarressed to find that he has made a very bad mistake
in his latest project. And although promotion would be nice,
part of him is anxious that he would make more and more mistakes, the
greater the responsibility he has. Still, he dreams of being able to
control other peoples' lives in his role as a city planning officer,
deciding what houses are built where, and what the local facilities
should be. He finds that he is thirty years too late to do the job that
he was trained to do, and that all the big construction jobs are now derived
solely through private finance, which is not as economical as it is famed
to be (just who is going to live in all the city centre flats that are
springing up?). Instead, Peter's boring job is to effectively rubber
stamp or refuse planning applications. It is all too easy to escape
from work by absorbing himself in Sophie's notebook, just as Sophie has really
escaped from work by running away. This is a theme that Clare
Littleford also explores to great effect in her second novel, Death Duty, and
is one that should appeal to the community of commuter readers (if not their
bosses, if they were all to spontaneously follow Sophie's lead).
This is an extraordinarily brave and authentic debut novel. Clare
Littleford does not pull her punches, and is brave enough to lead her readers
into the darkest recesses of the mind. The effect of the novel
reminds me of James Hogg's most famous novel, and if you've read both
books, you'll probably know what I mean. If you haven't, then you
won't. One thing is for sure: the resolution of this novel will
having members of reading groups having their most animated discussions.
I don't think that it spoils the ending to say that Clare Littleford
leaves more than a little to the reader's imagination. Readers will
either hate or love this device. I like it because why read if
you're not going to use your imagination? Clare Littleford has attempted
something that very few writers can ever dare to pull off. And
she succeeds for the most part. I personally would have edited out
some sentences from Peter's meeting with Sophie's work colleague,
Leanna. And if you think about it, most people don't write their
diaries in narrative prose, or if they do, they don't have the total
recall for dialogue that Sophie seems to have. Then again, the diary is a
fiction, and works very effectively at dragging Peter and the reader into
Sophie's world. Peter is a very convincing character, and Clare
Littleford has no problems with devising an anthentic portrait of a modern man
caught out of his depth. Clare Littleford is a very good writer, full
stop, and one that I will be reading more of in the future. And if you
think Beholden is good, you'll be glad to find that the next, Death
Duty, is even better.
Authortrek
Rating: 9/10
Kevin
Patrick Mahoney
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