The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
by Maggie O’Farrell
2007 / 277 pages
rating – 7.5 / contemp fiction

I’m not fond of books without chapter divisions – what is it the reader is supposed to do, read it in one sitting? Are we supposed to think the author just sat down and wrote this out in one sitting? I understand the work is meant to be seen as “seamless,” or of a piece – well, okay, but I don’t eat dinner that way and it’s certainly “of a piece.”

Whatever – I enjoyed but wasn’t really impressed with the story of Iris Lockhart, a present-day Scottish woman, who finds she has a great aunt being released from a mental hospital. It seems that Esme Lennox has been stashed away for deuces there and it’s now closing. The main plot thread follows >>>>MORE>>>>