All posts tagged debut novel

What Came Before by Anna George

‘My name is David James Forrester. I’m a solicitor. Tonight, at 6.10, I killed my wife. This is my statement.’

This is the dramatic opening of What Came Before, the brilliant psychological thriller debut by Melbourne writer Anna George. The rest of the novel reveals how the murder came to happen.

We see Forrester’s wife, Elle, before her death. She’s working in the film industry, having left a career in law. With one successful film behind her, she is busy directing another. This latest is about “limerance”, the early stages of romantic love.

Elle encounters Forrester, a high-powered lawyer she remembers from her legal days. She is immediately attracted. By what? His looks, the interest in art they share. Certainly not his sociability, as he proves indifferent to her friends. As they begin their relationship, she experiences an almost delusional infatuation – the “limerance” of her film’s title – which leads her to ignore warning signs that the relationship isn’t healthy.

Unknown to Elle, Forrester’s marriage has disintegrated, leaving him angry at his ex and missing his young step-daughter. He’s also a frustrated artist, a control freak and a very unhappy man.

Throughout the narrative, point of view switches from Forrester, as he dictates his “witness statement” and consults a retired QC for legal counsel, to Elle, as she lies in death – or the imagined transition that follows death. This dual narration, swapping tenses between past and present, makes for compelling reading as we are led inexorably to the inciting incident, Elle’s death.

One question often asked about women in abusive relationships is, “Why did they stay?” What Came Before answers this question. “Limerance” makes us idolise our partners, letting us see only what we want to see; tells us to forgive their failings, to look only at their good qualities; blinds us to the escalating “cycle of violence”. The longer we stay, the more we believe they are essentially “good”, that their character defects are a result of damage done in childhood, that we are connected to them in some essential way, the more dangerous the relationship becomes.

Anna George has drawn on her own experience* of “emotional abuse” to create the relationship between Forrester and Elle, and her experience shows. For me, though not for all reviewers, she manages to make Elle sympathetic, despite her irrational choices. George also conveys what it’s like to be the man who resorts to violence, his self-justifications, his belief that he was provoked. If I had one criticism of the characterisation of What Came Before, it’s of the moment when Forrester makes a transition from “emotional abuser” to “physical abuser”. For me, the transition appeared too abrupt. Thinking about his behaviour in terms of “narcissistic rage”, however, I can make more sense of it. Far from being egoistic, Narcissists lack the internal resilience that would allow a healthier psyche to take criticism, perceived rejection or opposition. In this light, George gets the psychology for Forrester right; the result is believable and frightening.

The publishers have described this novel as “literary”, and in the vein of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. What Came Before is clever, like Flynn’s novel, but the cleverness isn’t at the expense of its emotional truth. The characters come across as real, their motivations consistent, their delusions understandable. Does this make it “literary”? It’s a well-written psychological thriller which deserves to become a best-seller.

Anna George has been added to my already impressive list of “must read” Australian female crime and suspense authors. I can’t wait for her next book.

* Anna George mentioned this in an interview with Carol at Reading, Writing and Riesling blog, here.

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers Challenge and Aussie Author Challenge. A review copy was kindly supplied to me by the publishers via Netgalley. What Came Before has already been reviewed for the AWW challenge by:

Author: Anna George
Title: What Came Before
Published:25/06/2014
ISBN-13:9780670077731
ISBN-10:0670077739
Publisher:Penguin Aus
Imprint:Viking

14 Comments

by Elizabeth Lhuede on July 3, 2014 • Permalink

Posted in Aussie Author Challenge, AWW challenge, Book review, crime, literary fiction, suspense, thriller

Tagged Anna George, australian fiction, Australian women writers, crime fiction, debut novel, domestic violence, legal thriller, Melbourne, murder, Penguin, unreliable narrator

Posted by Elizabeth Lhuede on July 3, 2014

https://elizabethlhuede.com/2014/07/03/what-came-before-by-anna-george/

Introducing Lizzy Chandler – a new name, a new blog and a new story

When I was about seven I defaced the inside back cover of a picture book by writing my first story. I don’t remember much about it, except that it featured the Nativity. Instead of getting me into trouble, my act of vandalism gave me unexpected celebrity with my (usually distant) father. He said it should be printed out and sent in to the Catholic Weekly. Receiving that praise was the start of my lifelong ambition to be published in fiction.

Last year a good writer friend, Cathleen Ross, did a spontaneous psychic reading for me. She said my “guides” had just one message: I needed a good kick up the backside as I should have been submitting my work to publishers. As I’d once had a reading by an Indian psychic in Agra near the Taj Mahal, I was dubious. That psychic hadn’t picked me as a writer. Nevertheless, I listened to Cathleen. She suggested I approach Kate Cuthbert of Escape Publishing (the Australian digital arm of Harlequin) with one of my romance novels, a story that had been a finalist in the Clendon Award some years ago. After seeing the first three chapters, Kate requested the whole manuscript. A couple of weeks ago, she sent me an offer of publication.

This is it. My lifetime ambition is about to be realised, after years of rejections and near misses, and all the self-doubt and frustrations any aspiring author will know only too well.

While I’ve shared this news already to family, close friends and the Australian Women Writers team, I wanted to organise a few things before I went public with my news. The first thing I needed to do was to settle on a pen-name. (Anyone who has pronounced my surname, Lhuede, as “lewd” will understand why this isn’t a great name for romance.)

So I’ll be publishing under the name Lizzy Chandler.

Chandler is a family name that I’ve been able to trace back to the late eighteenth-century in Gloucestershire, UK. My great-, great-, great-, great-, great-grandmother was Sarah Chandler, on my mother’s side. Elizabeth is also a family name that goes back many generations, and my darling grandmother was always known as Lizzy, so I love my new name (and it’s much easier to spell).

If you’re a friend, family or writing acquaintance, if you participate in the Australian Women Writers challenge, and if you love a good story with romance and suspense, I hope you’ll like my Lizzy Chandler Facebook page, find me on Twitter @Lizzy_Chandler, and follow my new Lizzy Chandler blog. I’ll keep you posted when my book is out. It’ll be available in digital format (ebook) all around the world.

In the meantime, I want to share this photo of the countryside that inspired my story, Her Man From Snowy River Country. It’s a cabin where we stay from time to time. I’ll keep the incredible tale of what happened when I was down there researching this story for another time.

Special thanks to my family and friends, the team and participants of the Australian Women Writers Challenge, and Kate at Escape Publishing. I’m thrilled that I’ll be a published author after all this time.