True Things About Me

April 18, 2011
This unabashedly predictable tale of abuse by Davies (Grace, Tamar and Lazlo the Beautiful) finds its redemption in a sizzling voice. Our nameless heroine, who gets bowled over by a man in a car park (and pays a price for it), describes everythingâsex, abuse, cookingâfrom the same detached perspective: "La, la, and thrice la, she sang, swooping and banking up by the fluorescent light strip. It verily is." Referring to her flighty self in both first and third person and also as a disembodied witness creates a vibrant Alice in Wonderland feel, though dark as pitch since this Alice is copiously beaten, robbed, and humiliated by "Mr Blond," the rough, enigmatic man she clings to. This doleful exposé is also a romantic potboiler for the masochistic; a chronicle of a woman coming undone and crawling back for more: "I longed to see him. When I woke up in the morning the longing woke up too, like a strange creature on my bed. The feeling moved up from inside my pelvis and settled in my throat." Ouch.

June 15, 2011

A young British woman watches her life unravel after a risky sexual encounter with an ex-con.

It's lust at first sight for the unnamed narrator of this unsettling novel, who just can't help herself when a hunky, fresh-out-of-prison claimant enters the benefits office where she works. The two end up having a quickie in the parking garage, an unprecedented act that triggers something self-destructive in her. She tracks him down afterwards, and they embark on a highly dysfunctional affair characterized by his cruelty and her degradation. There are thrills to be had as well, but her obsession drowns out every other relationship in her life. Her loving parents and loyal best friend Allison try to snap her out of it, but it is no use. She slacks off at her job, makes a fool of herself on a blind date with a decent bloke and generally does everything she can to distance herself from the solid middle-class world she came from. Fitfully aware of the toxicity of her relationship (he disappears for weeks with her car, disrupts her grandmother's funeral reception), the girl makes some feeble attempts at a normal life. The ironic titles of each chapter read like daily affirmations suggested in a self-help book, and inject a creepy humor into the increasingly bleak proceedings. Her internal struggle over Mr. Wrong seems to jeopardize her very sanity. Naturally, something has to give, and although both reader and heroine know it will end badly, the shocking finish still comes as a surprise. With a distinctive, cliché-free writing style and a psychologically complex "victim," this first novel from talented, award-winning Welsh writer Davies (Grace, Tamar and Lazlo the Beautiful, 2009) points to a promising future.

Darkly sardonic exploration of sexual obsession.

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