Pennance by Clare Ashton is another stunning debut entry in the self-publishing world of fiction. The tone and emotional atmosphere reminded me very much of Josephine Hart's Damage, a book that mesmerized me years ago and provided a standard against which I tend to judge many literary fiction books since.
Ashton's book is true literary fiction in the best sense--a brilliant love story/mystery, beautifully written. It's the gripping story of Lucy, a woman who retreats into a self-induced shell of isolation, paranoia and self-destructive mental fantasies that tend only to support her guilt, shame and regret at not having been able to save her boyfriend after they were involved in a violent auto crash. The problem is even deeper: She didn't love him. Not the way he or she would have wanted.
At the height of Lucy's social withdrawal, a new neighbor moves down the shady lane from Lucy's cabin. Lucy can't believe it. Her privacy will be interrupted and her waning social skills will be tested. Sure enough, all her fears of discovery, all the ennui of depression and all the hyper-vigilance of her anxieties fill her waking hours. Yet she finds herself steadily drawn to the nearly divorced neighbor, Karen, after a chance meeting while Lucy is out running off her stress at being forced to live...at all.
Their friendship blooms amidst the weeds of their mutual pasts. Karen has two children, an unfriendly husband from whom she is separated and a connection to Lucy's life that our protagonist would never have imagined. But as they get to know one another, and their relationship moves from romantic attraction to uncertain outcome, something else in Lucy's life is suddenly amiss: Someone is trying to kill her.
I cannot reveal the outcome of the growing romantic and sexual attraction between Lucy and Karen, nor the impediments that are placed in their way at every turn, but I will say this is one hell of a love story!
The book reads simultaneously like a tightly wound mystery and like a very modern gothic romance. The words, the feelings, and the action--all of it revealing a level of talent and skill astoundingly high for a debut novel--is a hypnotic aphrodisiac that you won't soon forget. The tension is palpable, Lucy's angst measureable, Karen's charm compellingly real and the story telling magnificent. I could not put this book down.
In every moment of the story, the measure of pain and passion in Lucy's reality begins to dawn upon the reader in well-modulated increments of revelation and mystery. The outcome is all the more astonishing for the dashed hopes and spent spirit that Ashton imparts in Lucy's view of the world after she learns who it is that has been trying, first, to frighten her and then, to kill her.
Do yourself a favor: Buy this fabulous novel, Pennance, support this artist Clare Ashton, and let's hope another book is on the way in the very near future.
