(Headline, $36.99)oy sister Anna raved about this book so much over the holidays that I got her to write the review! You may have, like me and other ghoulish girls from large, rowdy families, spent hours as a pre-teen scouring your local library for the saddest and most gut-wrenching tales of orphans and abused children. And you may still have, like me, this predilection for stories that err heavily on the side of tragedy.
If so, you’ll be thrilled to know that the adult equivalent is now available in The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. It’s the captivating and beautifully told story of Iris Lockhart, who discovers one fateful day that she is the only remaining competent relative of Esme, who’s been incarcerated in a psychiatric unit for the past 60 years. Tragedy plus plus.
So far, so brilliant. Iris is a slightly dissatisfied young woman who runs a recycled clothing business in contemporary Edinburgh. Her own love life is complicated and she is at a veritable crossroads when news of her hitherto unheard-of great-aunt’s existence is dropped on her, along with the fact she’s about to be released into community care.
The book comfortably straddles dual stories: one being the two women’s current struggle to deal with their unusual circumstances; the other, and way more interesting, is how Esme, a lively and unconventional child, a daughter of the raj in Edwardian times, got sent to the bin. And how she stayed there. And stayed there. And stayed there.
The events as they unfold will leave no fan of melodrama unsatisfied. This book is a quick but, I hasten to say, not an “easy” read. I read it one Sunday – and cried an actual river. Anna Lynch
