|
In Catherine
O'Flynn's debut novel, What Was Lost, kids disappear,
ghosts lurk in dark hallways, and some things never change.
It is the first idea, however, that guides this interesting
mystery, as two people find themselves connected not just
to dead-end jobs but also to a cold case revolving around
the disappearance of a ten-year-old girl.
The ten-year-old
in question is Kate Meaney, orphaned and living with her could-care-less
grandmother in the suburbs of Birmingham, England in 1984.
Inspired in part by American sitcoms, Kate is a dedicated
though mostly inexperienced would-be child sleuth, falling
somewhere between Nancy Drew and Harriet the Spy. O'Flynn
spends almost the entire first half of the novel encapsulating
Kate in the brief period of time shortly after the death of
her father almost as a series of portraits: Kate bored in
school; Kate interacting with her only friends, Adrian and
Teresa; Kate considering the look of future business cards.
Sadly, the lack of plot development here is done almost to
the point of distraction; Kate is an arduously detailed character,
but there is so little story, it is almost a relief when she
finally disappears.
There
is no doubt that O'Flynn excels at creating delicate characters
in varying degrees of loss. Though the first portion revolves
around the singular development of Kate Meaney, it is the
incident of her disappearance that gives rise to the turning
points in the lives of the modern-day cast. Transitioning
to this time, Kate Meaney has been missing for almost 20 years,
but O'Flynn continues to hover over Kate's childhood haunts,
including Green Oaks Mall, a vast shopping center where Kate
investigated and trailed potential crime-committers and where
in 2003, music store manager Lisa and listless security guard
Kurt find themselves unhappily employed and bored with their
routine lives.
As many
employees are apt to detail, the shopping mall is a unique
junction of pedestrian travel; strange mixes of young and
old, rich and poor all compelled to the same places day after
day, a sort of depressing sameness bouncing off colorful marketing.
In What Was Lost, O'Flynn meditates on this sameness
with the same focus as previously given to the development
of Kate Meaney. It is as if O'Flynn is trying to spell out
in no uncertain terms that the drama will happen here. As
it seems like this book falls in the mystery genre, O'Flynn
provides little that readers will uncover on their own.
The overwhelming
problem in What Was Lost isn't the plot; rather, it
is the time O'Flynn takes in just over 250 pages to make the
plot happen. Instead of focusing on the minor falls and major
lifts, so to speak, of typical mysteries, O'Flynn gets caught
up in making seemingly boring characters interesting. While
it is always crucial for readers to get a fair sense of the
main players, O'Flynn leaves little to the imagination, describing
almost every aspect of their mundane lives—from what
they eat for lunch to what they do on days off—making
them even less compelling than they might have been without
the added intrusion.
That
said, O'Flynn also offers a bit of social commentary; it does
not go unnoticed that in 1983, her characters are the shop
owners and customers of independent stores imbued with a irreverent
sense of community that all but flat-lines in 2003 as Green
Oaks' gradual expansion leaves little on which the community
shops can survive. Unfortunately for readers, this is not
an evolution that O'Flynn lets sit in the background, going
so far as to have one of Kurt's fellow security guards set
up a photo-documented exhibition.
In mysteries,
there is an innate sense of accomplishment when readers spot
the ill-fit characters, discover the perpetrator before the
teeming conclusion, or imagine the eleventh-hour plot twists;
that's what makes mysteries compelling. In What Was Lost,
Catherine O'Flynn sets up the dramatic action in all the right
places but shelters readers from developing even the slightest
inclinations. It is not the plot twist or the developing action
that is compelling because O'Flynn shoots up flares at each
turn. There might as well be notations at the bottom of every
page that read CONSIDER THE SECURITY GUARD or THE BROTHER
IS INNOCENT. It is not a complete loss, however. Amid a few
character blunders, O'Flynn creates a few truly inspiring,
layered characters genuinely in search of what they have lost
in the wake of an event that shaped the rest of their lives.
If O'Flynn had given these characters the chance to be as
compelling in action as they are in description, the disconnect
between story and character would not be so distracting.
(August,
2008)
|
