THE STORY OF YOU by JULIE MYERSON

THE STORY OF YOU

BY JULIE MYERSON

THE BLURB:-

A freezing room in a student house, a sagging mattress on the floor, and two people, one nineteen, the other twenty, kissing passionately.   All night.   It is to this terrible scene that, twenty years later, Rosy returns obsessively.  She has just lost a child in a terrible, careless accident and her partner has taken her to Paris to forget about things, to start again.

It has snowed in the night and, waking at dawn, Rosy goes for a walk.   At the hotel desk there's a note for her: 'I'm waiting for you X.'  And he is, sitting in the corner of a cafe she enters almost at random.  They talk.  He touches her.  She turns away and when she looks again he has gone.

Was he there?  Had she dreamed him?   And why, when he emails her out of the blue two days later, does he write as though they haven't met for twenty years?

THE REALITY:-

Years ago, I read Sleepwalking by Julie Myerson. My partner at the time liked the column she wrote for one of the broadsheets (which I don't know, the News Of The World was always more my cup of tea!) He subsequently bought her first novel. Sleepwalking tells the tale of a pregnant woman who embarks on a very strange affair after finding out that her disturbed father has committed suicide. It was compelling reading, so I thought I'd give this book a go.

Hmm. Part of me wishes I hadn't. “Written in stark, simple prose,” one review on the cover said, which was really an analogy for the writer having used no speech marks. Whilst I understand the need to be artistic, I do think the words would have had more of an impact had they been properly punctuated. This style really grated, and made it a mission for me to finish the novel.

But finish it I did. The subject matter is truly awful- Rosy/Nicole struggles to come to terms with the loss of her baby following an accident and (as in Sleepwalking) embarks on an affair, in this case with a guy she knew as a student. In this novel, she recalls kissing him all night long, with a pearl from a broken necklace in her mouth. I remember something similar from Sleepwalking, so maybe the author experienced this for real.

It didn't take me long to work out that Rosy/ Nicole's lover was actually dead, so if this was meant to be a punchline of great discovery near the end then it was a bit lost on me! The sections detailing baby Mary's accident were really harrowing and brought tears to me eyes. Ditto parts where Mary revisits her mother and also where her mother's feelings for her are described in details of sounds and smells. Very moving and extremely heartbreaking.

I did start to wonder if this was maybe a book that I didn't need to read, and it was DEFINITELY the worst I've ever read in terms of writing style.  An upsetting and unsettling novel.