Case Histories: A Novel
by Kate Atkinson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kate AtkinsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-10-17
ISBN: 0316010707
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780316010702
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Case Histories: A Novel
Book Review: "Duty killed you in the end."
Summary: 4 Stars
Kate Atkinson's "Case Histories" starts out brilliantly, with the shocking stories of three families, all of whom suffer devastating losses. First we meet the Lands, consisting of four rambunctious girls, their exhausted and unhappy mother, and their indifferent father. One night, the youngest child, three-year-old Olivia, goes missing and is never seen again. Theo Wyre is a widowed lawyer with two adult daughters, one of whom is murdered while she is in her father's office. Theo loves Laura "with a strength that was like a cataclysm," and when he loses her, he is inconsolable. He cannot rest until he finds her killer. Finally, there is Michelle, who is so harried that she imagines manufacturing more time by knitting it, in which case, "her needles would be clacking day and night." Her new baby is a source of great distress. She feels that it "was a parcel delivered to the wrong address, with no way of sending it back." She is a perfectionist who cannot accept her imperfect existence. One day, she simply snaps, with devastating results.
These scenarios are riveting, and Atkinson, with her strong descriptive writing and indelible characters, initially has the reader firmly in her grasp. However, she does not sustain this level of intensity throughout the novel. Too many additional characters, including Jackson Brodie, a detective who is unlucky in love and dreams of retiring in France, dilute the book's impact. Jackson cares very much for his daughter, Marlee, but his critical ex-wife, Josie, and her lover are constant irritants.
Jackson eventually becomes involved with all three of the aforementioned case histories. He takes Olivia Land's sisters as clients thirty-four years after she vanished. Amelia and Julia Land have found a clue that may shed light on Olivia's sudden and unexplained disappearance. In addition, ten years after Laura's death, Theo still hopes that he will find his daughter's killer.
Kate Atkinson has a keen eye for detail and she expertly describes lives of quiet desperation. With mordant humor and moments of pathos, Atkinson imparts Theo's endless pain, Amelia's aching loneliness, and Jackson's boredom and frustration. Most of the characters have no significant others to comfort them, nor can they look forward to a particularly bright future. Nevertheless, they "just kept on going, even when their world no longer existed." "Case Histories" is an ambitious work that meanders at times and ends anticlimactically, but the author deserves credit for her marvelous command of language and her powerful insight into the mysteries of love and death.
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