Ihr Hund heißt Freud und die Begleiter im psychotherapeutischen Sinne sind dessen Nachfolger Adler/Jung. Man taucht mit diesem Buch weit ein in seelen-analysierende Tiefen, es umfasst die Liebe und den Verfall einer Beziehung. Was ist an diesen Stellen des Bruches möglich? Wie verhalten sich Menschen, die Sicherheit und Gleichmaß schätzen oder es halt nicht anders kennen? "Ohne einen Gedanken daran zu verschwenden, geht sie davon aus, dass das Leben einfach auf unbestimmte Zeit so weiterlaufen wird: nicht perfekt, aber völlig akzeptabel."

Der Schreibstil ist detailverliebt grübelnd, das mag einige abschrecken, ich mag diese Erhellung der Verästelungen des Alltages einer Beziehung. Hinter der Mauer "So tun als wäre alles in Ordnung, dann kommt auch alles wieder in Ordnung" lauern Abgründe, die schweigend ihre Explosionskraft ansammeln.

Aus diesem Aneinander-Vorbeileben wird eine Beziehung und ihr Zusammenbruch geschildert - und dabei werden die Kindheitserinnerungen der Protagonistin, ihre Entwicklung zur Therapeutin, ihr Alltag, die sich immer stärker zementierenden Verhältnisse offen gelegt, ohne den Mann außen vor zu lassen. Auch er wird erklärt, in seinem Alltag und seinen Träumen erhellt.

Die Spannung bleibt bis zum Ende, und die Auflösung hätte ich so nicht vermutet, mit dem Fortgang allerdings begann eine Ahnung. Meines Erachtens ist es vor allem ein Roman über die Frage, wann und aus welchen Gründen Frauen einige Dinge schweigend hinnehmen sollten und wo die tieferen Ursachen dafür liegen. Ein spannender psychotherapeutischer Thriller, der viele Interpretationsmöglichkeiten zulässt, ein spannender Raum zum Nachdenken.

This book was something of a sleeper for me; indeed, when it was published, I missed hearing about it, which was odd because Chris Priest is an author I follow.

At first sight, we are looking at the life of a recently-divorced writer living in rural England. She is having problems with getting her latest book published because it has been confiscated, for reasons unknown, by the Home Office (little alarm bell goes off). Her closest friend, an elderly lady who lives at the end of her lane, is found murdered in odd circumstances (second little bell goes off). Her son - who she never admitted having - suddenly emerges from obscurity. He has multiple issues, and works for a shadowy organisation which outwardly appears to be a commercial PR agency but is actually a private security contractor working for the UK Government as a sort of privatised MI6 (even more alarm bells going off). He came to that role through membership of the Guards Volunteers, a paramilitary police auxiliary force formed during World War 2 (great big alarm bell goes off).

Although this book was first published in 1990, these things were not part of normal political life in 1990s Britain, even given some of the excesses of the Thatcher government. But then, we slowly realise that in the recent past of the novel, there has been a nuclear accident at a French power station on the Channel coast, and the fallout plume has irradiated a large swathe of southern England. And one character has a hair-raising encounter with mysterious forces that are creating crop circles and who definitely aren't four drunken students in a Transit van.

It also very much channels the real-life case of the murder of Hilda Murrell and the increasingly wild conspiracy theories that sprang up over that case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_Murrell and https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1994/mar/21/argentina.falklands) (Indeed, the Guardian article cited could almost have been an inspiration for Priest, except that it appeared four years after the novel.) There are clues that we are in an alternate reality. In other ways, though, so much of this story reads as if it were an historical novel; there is much domestic detail - pension books, cheque books, corded telephones, phone boxes - that certainly seems quaint to us now. And the account of the writer's life strikes me as having been written from experience; certainly, there was much there that I identified with from going through the publishing process myself.

Everyone seems to have been rewriting their personal histories; no-one is quite who they seem to be. And one central character has an active life of the imagination, so much so that we are shown his wish-fulfilment fantasy version of one episode in the novel, which causes us to cast doubt on other parts. In the secret state, unreliable witnesses lurk round every corner.

I found this book fascinating, partly because I remember the time when it was set, partly because I like alternate realities, and partly because of trying to sort out the riddle of just whose version of truth we are looking at. It may not look like a page-turner, but I was so engrossed that I was eager to finish it so I could work out what was going on, and as a consequence burned through it in about 72 hours! ( )

It reminded me of The Leftovers, by Tom Perotta, because there's mention of a catastrophe that has happened - an accident at a nuclear power plant in this case - but it never leaves the background, it's just an unsettling event that triggers the plot and creates the setting, but it never takes the center stage.
The book's very short and it alternates points of view - most of it is 3rd person and these are the parts that focus on Alice, a writer whose latest book manuscript has been confiscated by Home Office for reasons unknown, some parts are a very unreliable first person, Gordon Sinclair, the son of Eleanor (an elderly writer, antinuclear activist and a friend of Alice, who is murdered in mysterious circumstances). Eleanor's voice is heard as well in 2 letters she writes to Alice.
This is actually a dystopia of a more subtle kind - apparently nothing is wrong but there's talk of radioactive poisoning, there's censorship and there's just something amiss with Priest's English society.
You have to read a lot between the lines, there are many things hinted at, about the plot, the general state of affairs and the characters themselves.
The book's certainly not gripping, but nevertheless interesting, in a quiet way. ( )

Ce roman de Christopher Priest est assez semblable à la majorité des œuvres de cet auteur, à savoir une certaine distorsion de la réalité. Ici, cette distorsion semble venir d'un savant mélange avec les fantasmes des protagonistes et ne nuit pas à l'intrigue du roman. Alors certes, cette intrigue manque de profondeur ; certes, ces fantasmes auraient mérité d'être plus développés. Néanmoins, l'intention est louable et l'ensemble est plutôt bien maîtrisé. ( )