Further Overthinking

Although, thankfully, this was all about the book I've been reading since finishing The Ghost. I think six days is a record finishing time, when it comes to my reading.

The book in question is No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay. Can't say I'd ever heard of him, but apparently he's a columnist for a newspaper in Toronto. The book was given to me by a friend who was clearing the chaff from her shelves (which is to say, anything that wasn't going to be read a second time, not that it was all utter crap), with the dubious recommendation that I might be more interested in the way it was written than with the story itself.

Which wasn't entirely correct, as it turned out.

In a nutshell, this book tells the story of a woman who lost her family back when she was a rebellious teen, has spent 25 years wondering what happened to them... and then finds out. And that's literally 'lost', as in 'they disappeared, overnight, without explanation, never to be seen again'.

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting from this book, but it certainly built expectations for something. Probably something more than the actual outcome. By turns, I found myself wondering "Is it time travel? Aliens? Clones?" but the solution turned out to be rather more mundane.

There were several points where I felt the author was signposting things far too clearly, far too early (at least a chapter ahead of time in some cases). Some of it seemed rather contrived, some of it seemed entirely pointless. The characters were often rather stereotypical (the TV show host - all smiles and glamour; the 'psychic' - all too obviously only in it for the money... but does she have a genuine insight? Hey, let's set that thread up and then ignore it completely!) and the 'twist' at the end really just seemed daft. There were a couple of times I had to backtrack a few pages (chapters?) to double-check the names of peripheral characters, and then it just seemed as though certain elements of the story hadn't been tightened up as much as they might, or that those same elements had been hastily tied up separately (and awkwardly) because they didn't seem to logically connect after all.

I have to confess that I found it a very compelling read. I've mentioned before that there have been books I've read that I just couldn't put down - I'd decide to read to the first chunk of a new chapter before turning out the lights and going to sleep, only to find myself finishing that chapter and moving on to the next. And the next. And the next. That certainly happened - a lot - with No Time For Goodbye. In fact, part of the reason I got through its fifty chapters - spread across 435 pages - in under a week was that I'd regularly blast through three or more chapters in one sitting. Hell, thinking it through, I must have averaged 10 chapters a night. Granted some of them are short. The 'alternate' chapters - the ones in italics - are anything from a few lines to only little more than a page. I felt very motivated to find out "just what the fuck is going on here?"

The main characters are drawn rather strangely. Cynthia, the protagonist, isn't exactly sympathetic. Her emotional ocean goes from calm to tsunami at the drop of a hat (literally! Ahem...) and, even taking the bizarre events of her past into account, most of it just doesn't ring true. Unless, perhaps, she is just completely batshit insane, and far too unstable to have even the sometimes strained relationship she has with her husband, the narrator.

And then there's that narrator, Terry. An English teacher who spends much of his narrative swearing like a sailor, and yet somehow, when bundled into a van by a couple of thugs, he gives them the impression that might instruct them to "unhand me!"... And not only that, but he then confirms that he would have said that next? Sorry, that just beggars belief. He maybe comes across as a little inept, but certainly not effete.

I quite liked his relationship with his troubled star pupil, and how that spilled into the later parts of the story, when he meets her new father figure, but that coincidence seemed far too great... far too fortunate and convenient.

The very end of the main story was tied up in a similarly convenient fashion. It was like one of those bad TV movies that get onto daytime TV, featuring faded stars of yesteryear. And, just like them, there was another twist after the end of the main story... A twist which bordered on the ridiculous, not to mention pointless, and somewhat damaging to the credibility of earlier parts of the story. Far too much in the story hinged on people keeping their mouths shut after behaving stupidly out of character. Often while drunk.

OK, it might not have been better if it had all hinged on time-travelling alien clones but, hell, something that far out would certainly have been preferable.

In other news, today should be the release date for The Last Story... I've yet to receive a text message or phone call from the folks at GameStation, with whom I've reserved a copy, but I may just wander over on the off-chance. I'm sure there are other things I can do in Uxbridge...