Customer Reviews

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

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Esme Lennox is a spirited girl who does not conform to 1930's society norms and so is locked up by her family in a mental asylum. "Insists on keeping her hair long", reads her record of admission. "Dances before a mirror dressed in her mother's clothes". Like The Memory Keeper's Daughter, the book begins with an act that would be unthinkable today but which was considered perfectly appropriate at the time. Sixty years later, her great niece, Iris, receives a phone call to tell her that the asylum is closing and she needs to take responsibility for her grandmother's sister - which is the first time that she has ever heard of Esme. Of Esme's family, only her sister Kitty (Iris's grandmother) is still alive, and she has Alzheimer's.

This is an interesting and moving story. Esme is a wonderful character and I felt sad and angry by the way that she had been cheated out of her life. I also liked Iris (though would have preferred less emphasis on her relationships with the men in her life and more on her relationship with Esme). The narrative jumps between Iris, Esme in the present day, Esme and Kitty as children and Kitty in the present day. It took me a while to get my head round the various strands. Kitty has Alzheimer's so her sections are written in a rambling stream of consciousness, which take a little getting used to but which is quite effective.

The ending is somewhat rushed and vaguely written. But it still packs a punch. It's one that you want to discuss with others. Overall this is a very good read that stays with you for some time.

If you enjoyed this book, I recommend The Secret Scripture which is also about a woman locked away in a mental asylum many years ago for spurious reasons.

SPOILERS ALERT: This book tracks, out of chronological order, the destructive effect an intolerant, narrow-minded family has not only on their scapegoated daughter, who may have some sort of learning disability (perhaps ADHD) but is hardly psychotic--at first--but also on their favored daughter. As others have pointed out, you can guess most of the "secrets" well ahead of the end if the book, but I don't think that's its point. I think it's more that the evil parents do lives after them, and Kitty's compounded failures towards Esme seem may be initiated by romantic rivalry, but that's just the trigger after years of accumulated frustration of being unable to protect her from either parents or bullying schoolmates--eventually Kitty just identifies with the aggressors and accepts the conventional view of all things, including Esme. The consequences for Esme are horrific, particularly when we can guess that if she entered art school or drama school she'd probably fit right in, but Kitty's marriage and future happiness are also doomed by her inability to rebel, just as Esme is doomed by her inability to comply. The book explores how when one family member is scapegoated, other members are also permanently damaged by being forced to witness or participate in the scapegoating: nobody wins. The readers who view the ending as someone who "got away with it" for years finally getting just deserts have missed the point that this tragedy was set in motion years ago by parents and doctors who got young girls to say what they wanted to hear, and then left them to bear the consequences. And as tempting as it is to stop there, one need only refer to Larkins' "This Be the Verse" to see that the damage affects more than one generation.
If anything, the book reminds me of _Wuthering Heights_: it also flashes back and forth in time, we don't know who is who at the beginning or how the situation came to be as it is when we begin, and we see how several generations are marred by poisonous family relations and bullying. WH at least offers the possiblity that some things are resolved or transcended by death, but in _Vanishing_ we are not even offered that frail hope.

Maggie O'Farrell's novel is a delicately told tale of indelicate acts. Young and single Iris has a love life fraught with taboos and an ordinary routine that preserves both her independence and her anonymity. When she receives a call from a local mental institution that she is the sole surviving heir of a great-aunt she has never heard of and who has been removed from society for sixty years, her life begins its slow unraveling. The institution is closing, and the mystery woman, Euphemia Lennox, has no place to go. Iris and Euphemia (who calls herself Esme) begin a fragile relationship as Iris struggles to juggle both her need for personal space and her guilt. Meanwhile, Esme has her own goals.

In fine, exact language, this slim novel unfolds through the fractured point-of-views of Iris, Esme, and Iris's grandmother Kitty, who suffers from Alzheimer's. The narrative is structured like a jigsaw puzzle, with bits of information judiciously offered until the whole picture is assembled. Unfortunately, the "secret" behind Esme's confinement and Kitty's guilt is a little too predictable, and the final act of the novel seems somewhat over-the-top and therefore not as satisfying as one might like. Still, O'Farrell's handling of the story and its issues is both evocative and authoritative.

Readers interested in the changing expectations of women may be intrigued by the author's premise that, while gender expectations may change over generations, women who rebel against society's rules still do so at personal cost. Because this book is not told in a straightforward narrative, casual readers may be frustrated trying to figure out what is happening, but readers of more serious fiction will find it both accessible and a quick read. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is a good, but not great, book - the perfect book for an evening or two by the fire.

A lifetime of betrayal is tucked inside this small but powerful novel, terrible secrets finally revealed, contrasting the devastating disregard for the rights of women in Edinburgh sixty years earlier to the modern day success of independent Iris Lockhart. Iris' choices are significantly improved from those of her great aunt Esme, a cozy condo and vintage clothing store, her only problem an ongoing entanglement with a married man. But this world view shifts abruptly when Iris is contacted by a mental asylum, requesting directions regarding the release of Euphemia Esme Lennox, a relative Iris never knew existed.

The hospital is closing its doors, patients released to hostels or willing family members. With the intention of simply delivering the taciturn, yet lucid Esme to approved housing, Iris finds herself unequal to the task once she sees the shabbiness of the venue and the questionable inhabitants of the residential hotel, a flotsam of drug addicts and shabby ladies of the night. Unable to resolve the issue until after the weekend, Iris takes Esme to her home, unsure of the older woman's actual mental state, whether Esme is dangerous or merely odd. Yet through Esme's reflections on her childhood and the ramblings of her sister, Kitty, now suffering from advanced dementia, a troubling past is revealed where two young girls born in Colonial India are pampered and tutored, cared for by servants as their elegant, somewhat untouchable mother gives birth to a younger brother.

Six years younger than Kitty, Esme is the outsider, the questioner whose bright curiosity ceaselessly offends a staid, controlling father. Returned to Scotland after a family tragedy, Esme desperately tries to fit into a new home with their grandmother and enrollment in a girl's school where she is the brunt of cruel jokes, studying the older Kitty for clues on how to survive this very different society. Kitty has her eye on marriage, trolling for an appropriate suitor; when an unwitting Esme embarrasses her family, she suffers the terrible consequences, sentenced to years of separation from her family in an institution that deals harshly with women who will not keep their place in proper society.

Iris seeks only to offer Esme some respite after years of abandonment and an opportunity to reintegrate into the world; meanwhile the past stirs the disturbing memories, each sister reliving the tragic events and the choices made by one against the other. Unfortunately, the die was cast years ago, unjustifiable decisions robbing a sixteen-year-old girl of her future. Esme's journey is absolutely heartbreaking, all the more so since the random institutionalization of young women was common place at the time. Sensing the profound connection between them, the two women, Iris and Esme, are drawn toward a shared history, Kitty holding the key to terrible secrets in her fragmented mind. Esme's strength and courage leaps off the page, her survival through years of isolation, her prison an island of memory in which this stunning story is told. Luan Gaines/ 2007.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

Dissociation is the key theme of this book. The first indication of the psychiatric defense mechanism is the trauma of the death of her little brother. Further into the novel, her name Esme is described as "Is Me". This is a blatant reference to the dissociation in which an individual breaks into "Is Me" and "Not Me" parts. She later demonstrates this defense mechanism in seeing herself safe on the beach with her family while standing in waves that almost took her life. Follow this theme thru the book, read of the injustice of mental institutions, read a "just" ending for Esme in this page turning, can't put it down book. The book will haunt you, and hopefully make you aware of the times dissociation is the defense mechanism that you use to face challenges that to save your soul must be put aside until you are strong enough to deal with them.
M. Klemenz

I was drawn to this book because the language of the opening pages was terrific. And the title of the novel is a poignant allusion to Esme's 61 year time in an asylum. Even the way Esme taught her younger self to "disappear" was intriguing. But ultimately I was a bit disappointed by this book. I thought the inherent drama of this story would be in the present: how will Iris come to unravel the puzzle of Esme's imprisonment, what attempts will Esme reveal that she made to free herself of her predicament (oddly, I don't recall any attempts -- her fierce spirit of her youth broken so completely?). Instead much of Esme's story relates to her pre-asylum days and what led up to being committed. So we are cheated out of learning what actually happened in her days in the asylum, lessons learned about herself and the world. And in the present -- I expected to see a final scene of Esme's rage. It doesn't come. So for me the story was anticlimactic. Though I did read it with great interest because I kept hoping to get to that present day catharsis. What is the moral of the story? In some ways this reads more like a long short story than a novel. I didn't experience the transformation of the character. Esme's truer disappearance -- not just the physical disappearance from the world into an asylum -- is the disappearance of her free spirit as a woman who doesn't want to marry and who wants to choose her own destiny. That was the interesting theme for me. I wanted to see more how that disappearance happened on a day by day basis. instead, it was implied more than anything else. It's still a good book. Just not the book I thought it was going to be. That's my take on it anyway.

I was intrigued by the cover reviews for this book, which included phrases like "strange, sad and marvelously well-written"; "elegantly written"; "horrors of a gothic novel" and "reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier".

None of that came through to me. The story is told through the voices of the 3 main characters, Iris, Kitty and Esme in the present day, and Kitty and Esme in the past. No narrator is identified. Adding to the confusion, Kitty's present voice is a random stream of disjointed memories, due to her dementia. The reader must learn to distinguish these voices, by means of reading and re-reading until finding the pattern, and by deciphering clues once the story starts to take shape. Even so, I felt that the end was not the least surprising, having been well hinted at for nearly half the book. In fact, I felt I must have missed some facet of the plot, because the deep mystery I anticipated never materialized. I think the story could be interesting. I liked Esme, and would have enjoyed becoming better acquainted with her, but the book doesn't give that type of depth to any of the characters. The issues noted in various other reviews at this web site tell the plot quite well, so I won't bother to discuss it. I think the reviews on the jacket cover are misleading and over-hyped. If I were an editor, I'd send the writer back to restructure the book, and to more fully develop the characters.

I bought this book during an episodic book-buying binge, thanks to the promise that it held a haunting mystery inside its covers. Then, there was the beautiful jacket depicting in bold colors, a lovely unidentified girl. These enticements proved accurate.

Stripped of its catastrophes, the back story is about a colonial-born mother, perhaps from an earlier England, who is desperate to marry off her two daughters. One embraces her mother's ambition that she lead a traditional life and one rebels against the notion. Ultimately, this is the divide that undermines the sibling connection.

Although I recommend this book, I will mention a couple of annoyances: I found the author's use of the word 'vanishing' excessive at times as though she lacked confidence in the reader's ability to understand her book, but this is a minor quibble. Some of her sentences were stilted. I'm also not sure the parallels between Esme and the one-generation removed Iris had to be so strongly drawn.

Why recommend this book as only one of a few I pass on to close friends or family? There are two reasons for my recommendation. The first is the way in which the author weaves between three storytellers within the text, symbolic of the way in which relatives are entwined, including how one generation is a part of the next. On the other hand, this writing style may be off-putting because it can be hard to follow at times. However, I quickly acclimated to it and experienced the author's creativity.

The theme of the book is the act of vanishing. The main characters are not as we initially believe them to be and in this way pulls his or her own vanishing act. This message made me think about how most of us have a vanishing act of one type or another, though thankfully not as devastating as Esme's, but nonetheless, vanishing acts are a part of most of our lives as we are not always as we seem to be. A book that makes me think is one that I can highly recommend despite a few imperfections. Who among us does not hide, does not vanish?

Esme and Kitty Lennox are born in colonial India. After their brother dies from typhoid fever, the family returns to Edinburgh. Esme's independent spirit, coupled with her intelligence, and refusal to follow the restrictive conventions of polite society cause great concern within her family. Ultimately, and almost inevitably, Esme is confined to a mental asylum.

Some 61 years later, the asylum is being closed. Esme's niece, Iris, is contacted and asked to collect a great aunt of whose existence she was unaware. Thus begins Iris's journey to discover who Esme is and the family secrets behind her incarceration.

This is the first of Maggie O'Farrell's novels I have read, and I will certainly be looking to read others.

Highly recommended.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

From its jacket depicting a young woman in a blue dress to its haunting tale of a girl deleted from her family, everything about this book is exquisite. It is simply mesmerizing.

Young Euphemia (Esme) Lennox sees her world differently. To her, "knots and markings in the wood flow like water." Her senses are acute, her innate curiosity and intelligence oftentimes baffling and unnerving to her family and others. Her mind rebels against a staid and stifling upbringing, against the demands to conform and the limited, idiotic choices a girl is given. Across two continents and seven decades, it is demanded that Esme behave. Behave or suffer the consequences. And the consequences Esme suffers in 1930s Edinburgh will appall even the most blasé among us.

Maggie O'Farrell's style is spare, yet highly evocative-lean and mean. It is at times poetic and other times primal. The perspectives suddenly shift without warning, some paragraphs are disjointed and your head swims as it attempts to readjust from the constant melding of past and present. Just as her character Esme marches to a different drum, so will Ms. Farrell. It's extraordinarily clever. It is a literary jigsaw puzzle that will bedevil the reader. And when the reader has placed each piece in its proper place, the picture that emerges will break one's heart to pieces.