we know this and plays skilfully with our expectations. There is a twist just past halfway through the book, which is jaw dropping both in terms of its stealth and how it seems to answer our questions, but she’s not content to leave it at that. There are more twists to come, each of them building on the last, each of them pulling the rug out from under both the readers and the characters. It’s a bravura performance at a structural level but, most important, everything is rooted in the flawed, disturbing realism of its characters. The Case Study, as twisty and strange as it is, has the essential ring of truth. Book Review by Robert Wiersema by Nicole Lundrigan As readers, we don’t make things easy for ourselves. It’s not our fault; it’s one of the side-effects of being a devoted reader. (The same is true for frequent movie or television viewers, but we’re talking about books here.) The more books we read, especially if we read extensively in a single genre, the more we come to understand how such narratives are structured, and the techniques and tricks that writers use to create their desired effects. More than that, we have come to expect them, to anticipate them. Take the plot twist, especially in the mystery/ thriller genre. It wasn’t so long ago that a single, well-played twist – likely coming late in the book – would be enough to genuinely surprise even the most jaded of readers. Nowadays, though, with reading so much, we have come to assume that such a twist is coming and we spend part of our reading trying to figure out what exactly it’s going to be, and how the writer might pull it off. And while a solid, traditional twist might give a momentary satisfaction, it doesn’t really surprise us; we’re liable to come away from such a book with a vaguely empty feeling. Good writers (who are also, inevitably, devoted readers) know this and structure their books accordingly. Take The Case Study, the new book from Newfoundland-raised, Toronto-based writer Nicole Lundrigan. The novel begins by introducing LK, the subject of a 2003 case study in The Journal of Abnormal Psychology. In the summer of 1996, the teenage girl was found (suffering “severe dehydration and sun exposure, but no evidence of physical or sexual abuse”) near the murdered body of her uncle at a remote wilderness cabin at which she had been isolated for several days. She was suffering from Cotard’s syndrome, a psychological condition in which she believed herself dead, “a complete denial of self.” Found unfit to stand trial for her uncle’s death, she was institutionalized and remained so until she turned 21. After that introduction, we jump ahead 20 years, where we are introduced to two women in their early 40s. Bea is married, mother of a teenage daughter, daughter of a difficult mother and struggling to move forward in the wake of her husband’s infidelity. Lainey, who owns a yoga studio, has a younger boyfriend in whose condo she lives and with whom she indulges in a lifestyle of sexual experimentation, including voyeurism and group sex. (There is rather a lot of sex in this book. None of it is especially explicit, but it bears noting.) As experienced readers, we know a few things from that beginning: clearly, the story is going to involve the events in the summer of 1996. One of these women is, obviously, the former LK and, of course, there is some connection between the two of them, which the book will reveal. Crucially, Lundrigan – whose last two books were shortlisted for the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Novel – knows that The Case Study 40 | www.snowbirds.org
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzMzNzMx