Book 73: Restless

NUMBER: 73
TITLE: Restless
AUTHOR: William Boyd
STARTED: December 25, 2007
FINISHED: December 29, 2007
PAGES: 324
GENRE: Fiction

FIRST SENTENCE: When I was a child and was being fractious and contrary and generally behaving badly, my mother used to rebuke me by saying: 'One day someone will come and kill me and then you'll be sorry'; or, "They'll appear out of the blue and whisk me away - how would you like that?'; or, "You'll wake up one morning and I'll be gone. Disappeared. You wait and see.'

SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] Sally Gilmartin can’t escape her past.

Living in the idyllic English countryside in 1976, Sally is haunted by her experiences during the Second World War. She also suspects someone is trying to kill her. With mounting fear, Sally confides with her daughter Ruth; a woman struggling with her own past. Sally drops a bombshell. She is actually Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian émigré recruited as a spy by the British prior to the Second World War. For the past thirty years, Eva has led a second life hiding from the ghosts of her past.

Eva reveals her secret to her daughter through a series of written chapters for a planned book. As Ruth delves into her mother’s writing, she learns the shocking truth. Eva was recruited in Paris prior to the Second World War, following the death of her brother Kolia; also a British spy. Taught by an enigmatic spymaster named Lucas Romer, Eva learned the art of espionage and was made part of a unit specializing in media manipulation. Above all, she was taught ‘Rule Number One’ of spying: trust no one — a rule broken when she and Romer began a dangerous love affair. The affair had tragic consequences.

In 1941, Eva and Romer were assigned to the United States. They were given the task of manipulating the American media into motivating the public to support entry into the war on the Allied side. While in New York, Eva’s affair with Romer set in motion events that culminated in her betrayal and her flight from the British Secret Services. She found eventual refuge in a new life as Sally Gilmartin.

Thirty years later, Eva’s identity unravels with her confession to her daughter. Ruth struggles with the truth, and her own recent past fills her with self-doubt and insecurity. A failed relationship in Germany resulted in a son and an eventual return to England. Her mother’s confession leads Ruth to the realization that her mother is entangling her in one final mission — a showdown with Eva’s past betrayer.

REASON FOR READING: It was January's selection for my book club.

THOUGHTS: This book was the selection for January in my bookclub, and I don't know what we're going to talk about. I spent the entire time asking, "How is this going to end?" Boyd's writing and plotting are very enjoyable, but the ending turned out to be one large, disappointing information dump. What could have been a fantastic novel about human relationships and perceptions turned into a second rate spy thriller.

Boyd has set up his narrative to tell the story of mother and daughter in parallel plotting. He jumps back and forth in time, but never loses the reader because the past events are revealed, paralleled, and expanded by the events taking place in the future. The actual story is nothing surprising or even all that unique. Aside from certain nuances, this is a rather basic story of human deception. What was interesting, was how I found myself thinking "What if you're wrong?" throughout the book. Since the characters can never trust one another, it's something difficult for the reader to understand their motives. In some ways, the reader may also question the narrator's honesty.

The whole book is driven by the ending. We're reading to find out the ultimate end. That end is such a let down it's not even funny. Boyd just dumps a ton of history and out of left field character information on the reader in about three pages worth of space. I closed the book and though that the ending made the novel pointless. Boyd should have just focused on human actions and perceptions. Questioning a characters motives is a whole lot more interesting than actually finding them out.

MISCELLANEOUS: Agent Starrfire. Teehee.

RATING: 5/10 [Meh]

Comments