A Review of Karen Brown’s “The Clairvoyants”
She Sees Dead People
If Alfred Hitchcock were still alive and making movies, my bet is that he’d option Karen Brown’s luminous literary psychological thriller The Clairvoyants in a heartbeat. The book reminds me a little bit of Rebecca, after all (and the book’s jacket credits Daphne du Maurier as further inspiration). Taking equal cues from that work and the tragic sister tale Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, this work is haunting and mysterious, full of twists and turns that are so gripping that you might start sweating blood. There is hardly a plucked note in this novel that jars or is discordant, and it is simply superlative.
The novel is about a young woman named Martha Mary (and is told from her viewpoint) who can see ghosts. They’re everywhere, lurking — but what they want is something to be discerned by the reader. In any event, Martha Mary is a photography student in Ithaca, New York, who has a bond with her sister Del — a troubled soul who has just spent the previous three years in a psychiatric ward and has moved into the apartment just below her. Both harbour a secret involving a teenaged boy who was infatuated with each of them earlier in life, and who died in baffling circumstances. Police suspected the sisters had something to do with it, but could never button down the case. Meanwhile, Ithaca is gripped by the disappearance of a young woman who Martha Mary sees visions of, which presumably means she’s dead. However, Martha Mary is also romantically involved with a young man named William who may or may not have had a role in the disapperance. Complications from there abound.
The Clairvoyants is the best kind of literary novel in that you have to savour each and every sentence as it glides over you. If you glance over even a word, you may find yourself reacquainted with that word or description 100 pages later and need to have your memory jogged by the reference (by flipping back through pages) if you missed it. Every sentence has weight and the dialogue is written at sharp angles, deflecting the reader from the truth. Ultimately, this is a story about the lies we tell and the secrets we harbour by telling those untruths. It is also a novel about family bonds, the link between sisters. It is — like a work of art — a book about the artistic process and temperament, and to what ends one is willing to go to capture life in art and what boundaries in that pursuit are off limits.
As that synoposis may imply, there is much to chew on with The Clairvoyants, which makes it rise above the level of most psychological thrillers. By the novel’s final 100 pages (the book is about 330 pages long), the screws get so tightly turned that the tension is almost unbearable — but the book doesn’t lose any of its artistic flourishes in the process. This novel is one that you can probably re-read; in fact, when I was about halfway through, I chanced at the beginning of the story again and found that I could see that introduction in a whole new light with the knowledge I’d acquired.
This novel, then, is layered. It slowly peels away at the real. Even though the ending is, to a degree, in little doubt, the facts that emerge are still shocking and surprising as they take a little bit of the mundane and predicable, and jazz them up with an element of astonishment. After all, you may easily guess what happened to the missing girl, but the motivations behind it and how the person did what they did will still shock. To that end, the book works as both a literary masterpiece and an effective thriller, with one element not overpowering the other. The Clairvoyants is a very special book — one that may hold a prized place on your bookshelf.
The only real criticism I have with the novel is with the character Del. While I’m happy that a character who presumably suffers from a mental disorder (which is not disclosed) is strong enough to the point where she sometimes steals the scene from other characters whenever she’s around, it is never relayed to us how she manages to rent an apartment below her sister. She has no money that we’re aware of (having been institutionalized for three years) and she doesn’t appear to hold down a job. Her presence, in this way, seems perfunctory — she is there for the need to be called upon whenever the novel feels that it must call upon her. Otherwise, the book is nearly pitch perfect. The mood is suitably Gothic, the language is strikingly prose-poetry.
If you haven’t already chanced upon this book (originally published in hardcover last year and now emerging in a paperback version), you would be well advised to head to your local bookstore and purchase a copy for yourself. And buy another one for a friend. And maybe one for your cat. Heck, buy the whole store out. The Clairvoyants is a novel you’re bound to be mesmerized by, one that you will drink in like a fine wine and let linger like a dream once it is finished. Karen Brown may not be exactly a household name yet, but with this book she has clearly made her mark on the literary world by offering up a suspenseful and engrossing thrill ride of a work of art. The intrigue is deep here, and no stone is unturned in this fascinating story that pulsates with a nervous energy. You will be amazed by The Clairvoyants. I cannot be more effusive in my praise than to say that this is a truly magical story, and I can’t wait to eventually read it again and discover the mysterious world of Martha Mary for a second time.
Karen Brown’s The Clairvoyants will be published in paperback by Picador on February 6, 2018.
Of course, if you like what you see, please recommend this piece (click on the clapping hands icon below) and share it with your followers.
