I Hope You Die in Your Sleep as a Term of Endearment?
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This is the story of the novelist Grady Green who gets fabulous news and horrid news both on the same night. The good news is that his most recent book has become a New York Times best seller, something he has always sought after. The bad news is that his beloved wife, Abby Goldman, is not home when the news comes in. Indeed, on that very night she goes missing, and is eventually presumed dead.
A year later, Grady’s life is in upheaval due to her death. He can’t write. He can’t sleep. But he can and does drink a lot, making him a mess. His agent, Kitty – who was also Abby’s godmother – seemingly gives him a lifeline. She owns a cottage on a remote Scottish island called Amberly that he can go to. Hopefully a change of scenery will fix things for him.
This was a fine premise but unfortunately it didn’t go anywhere. I have never read a book by Alice Feeney, but some of the reviews online said it was Feeney at her finest.
So as things dragged on and none of the suspense was particularly suspenseful – even for me, a person who gets the heebie-jeebies easily – I read on.
And as things dragged on and Grady told me repeatedly how he was probably just imagining the goings on due to alcohol consumption and insomnia, I read on.
And even as Abby told us she loved him, she loved him not, she loved him, loved him not – ad nauseam – I still read on.
Waiting for an amazing twist.
When it came, it made no sense at all. And as the author tried to explain all of the many goings on in the story, it was really confusing. I had to read those end chapters twice to understand what the author thought she pulled off.
Beyond this, I give demerits to the book for several things:
- Having two characters with the same name.
- The ridiculous way Grady and Abby had of saying “I love you” to each other at bedtime: I hope you die in your sleep.
- And for laying the groundwork for what could have been a meaningful feminist plot and turning it into nonsense instead.
As a writer myself, I don’t like to pan a book. So let me end by saying a couple of nice things:
- Part of the plot is that Grady steals another person’s manuscript and calls it his own. This was too similar to The Plot and to Yellowface for my liking. BUT, Alice Feeney did something very original with that plot line.
- And also, I liked the chapter that discusses how and why things are beautiful and ugly at the same time. It was thought provoking.
Borrowing that, I close this review having given a few ugly things about the book and a couple of beautiful ones.
That’s the best I can do for this novel.
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