I’m writing this in a gleeful (and slightly smug) state,
feeling warm and full at home – a novelty for us students. Yes that’s right –
it’s reading week, woohoo! Having finally got rid of the two essays that have
been plaguing me for the past two months, it’s time for some well-earned time
off. I managed a day of doing nothing before I was itching to write again, so
here’s my review on the brand new thriller Cloudland
by Joseph Olshan.
Now I know ‘reading week’ is intended for us to catch up
on neglected reading of the past six weeks prepare for the next six weeks
of reading, but this time I’m planning on using it to delve into all the brand
new books the lovely people at Arcadia Publishing sent me last week. So here’s
the first instalment….
Joseph Olshan is an American novelist, journalist, and short
story writer. When doing a bit of research into his past work, I wasn’t at all
surprised that he isn’t a crime writer as such – in fact Cloudland seems to be his first novel marketed as a ‘crime novel’.
Instead, Olshan’s focuses seem to be the tensions and depth within
relationships, and the anxieties surrounding societies and communities. What I
loved about Cloudland was its
combination of these concerns with a fresh take on the much-loved crime fiction
genre.
Based in a secluded community in small-town America called
Cloudland, we follow the story as narrated by Catherine Winslow: a middle-aged
divorcee/widow, ex journalist who lives alone with her two dogs and household
pig. On a morning walk towards the end of winter Catherine discovers a dead
body – a strangled woman who turns out to be one of a string of cases that are
being investigated. Catherine is rapidly caught up in the investigation and the
detective story becomes inextricably linked with her own personal life and dark
problems. The sinister snowy setting, the cut-off rural location, the
suspicious locals – all add up to the standard crime novel lay out, however our
protagonist Catherine is precisely what makes this novel stand out as something
more. Putting the perspective in that of someone who is not directly involved
in the case itself makes Cloudland not
just a thriller, but an exciting psychological thriller.
Don’t get me wrong – the scary and sinister plot devices and
twists were exciting and addictive, the red herrings were constant, every
character had something not-quite-right about them. I loved being put into the
position of detective myself, and by the end I was desperate to know whodunit.
However, more desperate was my desire to find out what would happened to
Catherine in the end, her reaction to each new piece of the ominous puzzle was
always the focus of my attention. Most striking for me was probably the
dichotomy between Catherine’s unbelievable calmness and fearlessness in the
face of a mass-murder case in which she – a woman living alone in a secluded
area – could be the next victim, and her constant anxious preoccupations with
regrets, the past, age, and responsibilities. For the majority of the book, the
terror comes not from the image of the murderer coming to find Catherine one
stormy night with no one to save her, but from inside Catherine’s own head –
the inability to escape her own thoughts, and her past, are what really
frighten Catherine.
Catherine’s restless awareness of age and the past
seamlessly infiltrate the novel. Catherine’s previous relationship with a
younger man is mirrored in her daughter’s current relationship with an older
woman. An adult’s responsibility for their child is reflected in the rocky and
sometimes reversed relationship between Catherine and Breck, and the neighbours
Paul and Wade. We as readers are never allowed to forget the age – mental or
physical – of any character and it becomes the default method of judging each
one. I felt Olshan was drawing attention to this shallowness of judgement that
the human race maintain, and this is only highlighted by the small-town America
setting. Through Catherine’s eyes we are given a glimpse of each person’s
pasts, and it is no accident that these cause us, and Catherine, to suspect
every single character as the murderer. I found this light-hearted suspicious
narrative surrounding even Catherine’s closest friends slightly hard to deal
with at first – how could she suspect people she’d known for years? And why was
she still comfortable to be alone with them and even openly discuss her
suspicions if they were sincere? However, the consistence of this is not a
casual oversight of Olshan’s – it comments on the inability of the individual
to escape any aspect of their past whilst placing them in the wider environment
of the gossip-fuelled, dysfunctional nature of such close-knit, small
communities such as Cloudland.
Whilst we have picked the book up at the start of what is to
be a disturbing detective story, we have also picked it up in the middle of
Catherine’s slowly unravelling life. I realised that she was not becoming less
stable as the book went on, it was merely becoming more apparent as she
revealed more intimate secrets from her past. With crime fiction being so huge
today, plots have to more and more complex and intricate, characters have to be
more developed, crime writers can no longer rely on creepy clichés – readers are
becoming more perverse. Joseph Olshan has managed to fulfil this criteria and
more. I’ve only picked up on a few of my favourite themes, but really there is
a whole trove of them: from extreme religion to homosexuality to literary
influences, Olshan manages to cover an inordinate amount, and in sufficient
depth, all within the frame of a detective novel.
A detective novel in the eyes of a mere onlooker, a simple
concept that has created a fascinating work of literature which kept my mind
spinning for days – even after the culprit was revealed. After this
introduction, the crime fiction genre has A LOT to live up to for me!
Read it now: get it here
Wow, this sounds like such a great and interesting book! Can't wait to get my copy!
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