Synopsis:
Influenced by the Marquis de Sade's work of the same name, an award-winning Scottish writer follows one Englishman's nearly hallucinatory obsession with an obscure woman depicted in a painting, who seems to come to life as identical twins. IP.
Reviews:
A postmodern, feminist variation on the Marquis de Sade's book of the same name, this American debut from Scots writer Thompson is a compelling, though abstract, meditation on identity and desire. The nameless male narrator, a handsome, wealthy aesthete whose physique is marred by a deformed foot, owns a portrait of a beautiful young woman named Justine. At his mother's funeral, he spies the portrait made flesh, but the real Justine leaves before he can speak to her. Later, he thinks he sees her again at an art museum, but this slightly less beautiful woman turns out to be Justine's twin sister, Juliette, whom the narrator seduces in hopes of finding her sister. When he does finally meet his reclusive beloved, she tells him that she is being stalked by an obsessive fan of her just-published novel, whom she fears is trying to kidnap her. Then Justine is apparently kidnapped, and Juliette also abruptly disappears, leaving the increasingly delusional narrator to search for the truth. More intellectual entertainment than explicit or transgressive fiction, Thompson's novel recalls John Fowles's The Magus or Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy more than it does the perverse and menacing work of de Sade?which will doubtlessly come as good news to some readers.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Scottish writer Thompsons second outing is her first hereand while some will groan at its jejune, vapid, imitative clunkiness, others will be smitten by its psycho-feminist puzzlings and probings. With debts to Henry James, Oscar Wilde, the Marquis de Sade, etc., etc., etc., Thompson takes a nameless and reclusive hyper-aesthete, makes him god-like of face and club of foot, surrounds him with glorious objets dart in his Kensington Gardens flat, and has him fall passionately in lovewith a portrait on the wall. Whether hes in love with the real Justine or the ideal Justine of the portrait, whether he loves the woman or wants to own her, remain (as theyve long, long had a way of doing) central to the mysteries, mazes, dreams, terrors, and tortures that follow, with an outcome that readers will have to find out for themselves. Our narrator, though, thinking himself divinely blessed by the fate of being spoken to by the real Justine in the stacks of a library ( Why me? Because of your face. It is like Michelangelos Adam reaching out to God ), ends up tricked, then tricked and tricked again not only by Justine but by Justines twin sister Juliette, even to the point of committing a murder (uh-huh, its very, very, very gory) in order to save Justine from a murderer of her ownthough from then on, things go badly indeed for Narrator, who will follow mazes and enter houses hes seen in dreams, find himself behind bars, lose his club foot, and... But one mustnt tell too much. Admittedly, there are brief moments, especially near the end, of psychological interest, mystery, even a certain penetration, though the road to them is well paved with banality (However, I could hardly take what she was telling me seriouslyit read like something out of a bad detective novel). For those, only, who like their mind- and gender-teasers in novel form. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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