Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intricate and moving story, November 14, 2007
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.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Indelicate Acts, December 29, 2007
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.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"In an odd way, we no longer seemed like a family.", October 27, 2007
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.
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by Maggie O'Farrell
by Maggie O'Farrell
by Maggie O'Farrell
by Maggie O'Farrell
by Sarah Addison Allen
