The follow-up to “Three Women” again uncovers experiences that are rarely discussed | Books & arts
As if by way of balance, Ms Taddeo has now swung to the other extreme, with a compulsive debut novel narrated by a wronged woman out to avenge the abuse of male power. Joan is 36 and on the run from New York after the gory death of Vic, her older, married lover. Lying low in California, she falls in with Lenny, a widower suffering from dementia.
So begins a provocative psychological thriller that sets out to subvert #MeToo-era notions of victimhood, at the same time portraying men as almost uniformly vile. The story sags in places, not least during the novel’s midsection, when Joan recalls her girlhood experience of desire in conversation with a yoga teacher, a sequence that resembles an offcut from “Three Women”. Joan’s narration runs melodramatically hot and can be overly portentous .
Ms Taddeo’s lurid and relentless focus on horror, from child abuse and rape to suicide and miscarriage, might be taken for relish. Yet as in “Three Women”, her determination to tear the veil from experiences that normally remain hidden makes this startling writer valuable.This article appeared in the Books & arts section of the print edition under the headline "Victim, complex"
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