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| Sunday, July 12, 2009 02:46 PM |
| Book Report - Disquiet |
 by Fëanor |
This afternoon I read Julia Leigh's gripping, haunting novella Disquiet, at poppy's recommendation. It's about a woman who suddenly returns to her family's estate after many years away, with two young children in tow. It happens to be the same day that her brother is returning to the house with his wife and their newly born child. Both siblings are in the midst of shattered relationships rocked by horrific trauma. As the nature of what they've been through, and how they're dealing with it, leaks out, the tension builds and leads us toward a climax that seems to promise even more trauma and tragedy. Can there be a future for broken people?
The book, though sometimes darkly funny, is also intense and dramatic and, as the title promises, disquieting. I was immediately drawn in by the book's quiet sense of melancholy and mystery, and was on edge throughout, turning page after page, waiting for the explosion to come. Leigh's prose is mostly subtle, clean, and bare, with the occasional (mostly successful) dip into the poetic. It's a powerful book, and the final page seems to offer at least a glimmer of hope that these characters might be able to turn away from death and walk back into life. |
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