What Was Lost by Jean Levy
WHAT WAS LOST
by JEAN LEVY
How would you live if you had no memories? And what if you were suspected of a terrible crime?
Sarah has no memories. She just knows she was found, near death, on a beach miles from her London home. Now she is part of a medical experiment to see whether her past can be retrieved.
But bad things seemed to have happened before she disappeared. The police are interested in her hidden memories too. A nice man she meets in the supermarket appears to have her best interests at heart. He seems to understand her - almost as if he knows her...
As she fights to regain her memories and her sense of self, it is clear that people are hiding things from her. Who are they protecting? Does Sarah really want the truth?
Sarah has no memories. She just knows she was found, near death, on a beach miles from her London home. Now she is part of a medical experiment to see whether her past can be retrieved.
But bad things seemed to have happened before she disappeared. The police are interested in her hidden memories too. A nice man she meets in the supermarket appears to have her best interests at heart. He seems to understand her - almost as if he knows her...
As she fights to regain her memories and her sense of self, it is clear that people are hiding things from her. Who are they protecting? Does Sarah really want the truth?
Before I share my review with you, I am very excited to have a guest post from Jean Levy to share with you all today! So without further ado, here is Jean talking about writing!
Proper Writing
I’ve always written, well
actually I’ve always made up stories. But stories were not really what I
finished up writing. Way back in school I was forced to choose between Sciences
and English and, since I declared that I wanted to feed the starving millions
and generally Save the World, the good advice I was given was that I was more
likely to achieve such ambitions through a biology-physics-chemistry-geology
education rather than a flaky English course. So, degrees later, still making
up stories, I became a cytogeneticist, a medical researcher, a lecturer, a data
trouble-shooter … In my spare time I did a Masters in Philosophy and a
Doctorate in Law. Clearly, I had not yet worked out what I really wanted to do
when I grew up. But I was edging my way slowly towards writing the science
rather than doing it. My agent got me contracts with the European Union, with
biotech and drug companies (my place in Hell is now secured). Then one ordinary
day … I think I might have been churning out some slightly opinioned piece
about Dolly the Sheep, I got a response back from a biotech editor thanking me
for my excellent review of goodness knows what, but most of all she loved my
covering letter … and why didn’t I think of doing proper writing? Did I do
proper writing?
Well, I wasn’t sure whether
to be insulted about my choice of career so far or pleased that there might be
something left that I hadn’t already done a course in. I presumed that she was
talking about fiction. Not a million miles away from much of the science I’d
been reporting. But, anyway, I let the idea root around for a while, took a
course in web design and started a national plant collection (Mentha). Then one Christmas my agent
announced that he was retiring. Overcome by sloth, I couldn’t be bothered to find
anyone else. And I certainly couldn’t bear the thought of trolling around
looking for contracts myself. So, I packed away the tinsel, dispatched the kids
back to university and, with the house to myself opened my laptop and started
to do some Proper Writing. That first day my husband ate residues from the
fridge and I wrote 10,000 words. The next day I rewrote 8,000 of them. By the
end of the first week I had achieved around 15,000 words, moved paragraphs,
inserted extras and come to the conclusion that I needed to do another course.
I did other courses: in creative writing. Then I went back to university, did a
not-so-flaky English degree, a Masters in Creative Writing and became seriously
distracted by linguistics. But, along the way, I wrote words and at last
produced something I was proud of. My next discovery was that getting published
is not simply a case of informing a publisher, as is the case with much
Academic writing, that you are a genius and would he/she like this
psycho-horror-romantic-comedy-thriller. Fortunately, I found a magnificent
agent, edited, changed the title, rewrote and the result is What Was Lost. It’s proper writing. And
I’m really proud of it.
So, the moral of my tale is:
Don’t always listen to good advice.
And my good advice is: If
you can make up stories, just write them down.
My Review
This is a well written, interesting novel that captures the narrator's predicament effectively and with skilful prose. The book is divided into sections called 'Episode' rather than chapters which I liked. Writing from the point of view from a character suffering from memory loss is challenging and there is always the danger of losing the reader or losing the sense of authenticity; neither happens here. The author has plenty of effective devices and imaginative ideas to show how Sarah struggles to not only piece her life together, but also navigate a confusing world in which she no longer remembers simple things about herself or her life. The first person voice also ensures the reader is with Sarah throughout her journey and intensifies the sense of confusion and challenges faced by Sarah.
At over 400 pages, I did feel some sense of trepidation before starting the novel, but actually, the prose is fluent and the intimate relationship with the character and their puzzle of a life pulls you through the pages. There's plenty of dialogue to make the characters three dimensional and to create a good pace but the attention to detail and thoughtful characterisation also adds the depth necessary with this plot. Levy's writing is assured, confident and engaging.
I recommend!
My thanks to Dome Press for the advance copy of the novel and for inviting me along on the Blog Tour.
JEAN LEVY
Jean spent several years in genetics research before abandoning the laboratory to pursue a
career in academic publishing both in Holland the UK. She has been a database troubleshooter,
an editor, and a writer for publishing houses, pharmaceutical companies and the
EU. She has degrees in Botany, Pathology, Philosophy, English, Law and Creative Writing
and is currently completing a doctorate in Linguistics.
In her spare time she has campaigned for the environment and read a lot of books, the most
memorable being Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, everything by Margaret Atwood and
Jeanette Winterson, and a few things by Sebastian Faulks, Calvino, Ian McEwan, David
Mitchell and Shakespeare.
She currently lives in a converted barn in the South Downs with her husband and a
Heritage Plant Collection, accumulates Christmas tree decorations and aspires to writing
multi-genre fiction, travelling on the Orient Express and seeing the Northern Lights.
Comments
Post a Comment