Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands by Richard Woolley

Having read and enjoyed Richard Woolley’s book Back in 1984 I decided to also get hold of this one.  I am not sure the order in which these will have been written as he appears to have had his 3 novels all published in March 2010. 

In common with Back in 1984 there is a mix of “standard” novel and diary entries to delivery the narrative.  However here while the diary entries provide a parallel time line to the novel they are woven together as we encounter the diary as the main character of the novel reads or listens to it. 

Sex and sexuality play a part in Back in 1984 but they are much more central in this work, including incest and bondage, which might render this not to some people’s taste.    

It is interesting that in the opening prologue the novel is set up as a period or historical piece even though it is set only 20 years ago (in the mid 1990s).  This prologue draws your attention to various events that have happened since and therefore separate us from the world in which it is set.  Most important perhaps is the internet – as so much of angst of the characters about sex and fantasy exists in the way it does because the are living in a pre-internet age – that is not to say that the internet would be the answer to the angst, just that it would fundamentally reformulate it.

I don’t feel that I had the same kind of personal connection with any of the characters in this story as I found in Back in 1984 and so it is in some ways hard compare the two as pieces of writing.  That I found this a less engaging story does not equate to it being an inferior piece of writing.  It had a similar claustrophobic sense to it, and to have conjured that within the open setting of the Dutch landscape displays a definite skill. There is a strong whodunit pull through the novel and the final unravelling of the events tells you “what” happened but still leaves you wondering “why” and I think that is a good place to have been left. 

I am planning to go on and read Richard Woolley’s other novel and I am interested to see how the that throws further light onto the themes which have clearly run across the first two that I have read.