THE
FATE OF KATHERINE CARR
BY
THOMAS H. COOK
THE
BLURB:-
Since the murder of his
eight-year-old son, George Gates has written local stories for the
town paper. A former travel writer, once he specialized in writing
about places where people disappeared, sometimes individuals,
sometimes whole societies. Since the tragedy, he plays it small and
safe.
The he hears about
Katherine Carr, a woman who vanished twenty years before. She left
nothing behind but a few poems and a bizarre story. It is this story
that spurs Gates to inquire into its missing author's brief life and
tragic fate, an exploration that leads him to make surprising
discoveries about his own life.
THE
REALITY:-
Weird. Definitely
bizarre. It was one of those novels that forced me to go back and
read sections, as I finished it and thought, 'What the fuck was that
all about?!' This may have been my fault, as I bought the book from
Poundland (yes, really!) and it took me a long time to read it, maybe
because I've got a lot of other, stressful, things going on in my life. Following the
floods that affected East London on election day, my cellar ended up
under two feet of water and the bottom three stairs down into it were
washed away, warranting a totally new staircase. As my electrics are
down there, this is a serious problem. I have my quotes and am now
putting the matter to the insurance company. Also, Newham council
have been on at me, as part of their “clean up Newham” campaign
to erect a new fence at the front of my property and I have had
trouble lining up a reliable builder. This is a fucking joke- maybe Newham council should think about cleaning up the people- such
as the drug dealers that deal at the dead end at the back of my
property and the prostitute who works the corner and who apparently lives in a garage opposite- first.
Rant over, now back to
the review. I did a lot of picking up and putting down with this
novel but found the thread easy to follow. The writing seemed a bit
“out there” and, whimsical and... touched. You
did question what drugs the author was on when he wrote this! It was
a novel that was very unsettling, tackling nasty subjects such as the
real horrors of society and the kind of dangerous sicko bastards who
commit appalling crimes. It was all there in the detail, and that detail made for a very uncomfortable read. I learnt about various
“lost societies” and, whilst it is always good to learn new
things from a novel, the were very depressing things.
There
is more than one story interlinked here, as you read George's story
and also Katherine's writing and there's also another tragic
character who George befriends via his work- Alice, a little girl
with a penchant for crime stories. Alice is dying from progeria. Such
disheartening subjects. The writing is good, though, and the stories
do kind of come together at the end although you have to read between
the lines as nothing is ever explained fully to the reader. I think
it was the man who owned the meat market who attacked Katherine
(though it could have been his never-revealed employee.) It looked
like she disappeared rather than died, and I think she was the person
in the yellow jacket who let George know that Teddy's death had been
avenged. And I think Hollis Traylor killed little Teddy.
This is a story about
vengeance, and passing on and teaching others the ability to do so,
as Maldrow does to Katherine, and Katherine does to George. And the
story ends with George seeking vengeance with Mr. Mayawati- another
dreg of society, or so it would seem- and nothing is ever quite what
it seems with this book.
A strange story. Maybe
it was because I read the final thirty pages at one in the morning,
but I had to go back and re-read sections to clarify things. Would
I read more by this author? Maybe. But I wouldn't rush to do so,.
Unnerving and unsettling.
