Being with their mum felt like when you were doing your work at a table at school, but the legs weren’t all the same length, so suddenly it tipped to one side when you weren’t expecting it.
Misty lives with her younger sister and her stepfather. Both girls had been left with Boogie when their rackety mother had found a new man who wasn’t so keen on someone else’s kids in his house. Boogie had only been eighteen, unaware he had a child, but proved himself up to the task of bringing up two, never distinguishing between Misty and his biological child Gemma. Misty works in a classy hotel, harbouring a fancy for Chris the son of one of the city’s richest men When he invites her to a party in an abandoned house with Lyness and Rami, she’s happy to have been picked out. The evening ends badly for Misty. When she reports the rape to the police, the machinery of privilege and influence swings into action.
You were with the wrong crowd. They weren’t your type of people.
Erskine threads short paragraphs of observations through her narrative, some from bit players in Misty’s story, others apparently random often slotting into the story later. It’s a style that feels a little disjointed at first, but it adds depth to this richly textured novel which explores class, privilege and consent through Misty, her family and the families of the three young men who rape her. The focus is on their parents rather than them, in particular their mothers: Frankie, Chris’s hard-edged stepmother, brought up in a children’s home, beautiful, angry and determinedly enjoying her husband’s money while ignoring her stepchildren; Lyness’s mother who fundraises for the kind of kids Frankie grew up with while over-indulging her own son, useless and oblivious to his privilege, and Miriam, not long widowed and worried about Rami’s fragility, made worse by Misty’s accusation. Erskine’s narrative slips from character to character, layering back stories which bring them vividly to life in all their complexity. Expectations raised sky high by her short stories were surpassed by this elegantly constructed, thoughtful and absorbing novel which ends on a note of hope with a kind of justice having been done.
Sceptre Books: London 9781399741668 336 pages Hardback (Read via NetGalley)
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Loved this review, Susan. I am completely fascinated by analyses of class and privilege, especially those coming from writers of a working class background. I just picked up my copy of this one two days ago. Greatly looking forward to it!
Thanks so much, Jennifer. I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one. She’s such a fine writer. I’d recommend her short stories if you’ve not already read them.
I have read both collections, sweet home most recently.
It was nice to see on Bluesky that Erskine enjoyed your review of her novel! x
I was very pleased she saw that x
I was going to say that this sounded very bleak, but your final sentence suggests this isn’t the case. She does sound such a skilled writer.
She absolutely is. I’m always on the lookout for hope in novels like this.
It sounds like the way she manages the different figures/voices/povs makes this extra satisfying. It looks like I might be able to get Sweet Home via ILL…I’ll see.
That’s it exactly! I do hope you can, Marcie.
This book is getting great reviews here in Ireland and her reputation as a writer is growing. I have not read it yet but hope to soon. She is appearing in Tralee, which is near me, next weekend with Ronan Hession.
I’m sure she’ll be brilliant. One of her short stories about an author appearing at an event is so witty. I hope you enjoy this one when you get to it.
You’ve given a great write-up for this author, whose work I don’t know … yet.
She’s rapidly becoming one of my favourites.
I enjoyed her short stories, too. This sounds well worth a read. I’m already predicting it will be a McKitterick Prize contender for next year.
That would be excellent and very well deserved!