The Fall Of Lisa Bellow
by Susan Perabo
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Pub Date Mar 01 2017 | Archive Date Jan 03 2017
Simon & Schuster (Australia) | Simon & Schuster UK
Description
A masked man with a gun enters a sandwich shop in broad daylight, and Meredith Oliver suddenly finds herself ordered to the filthy floor, where she cowers face to face with her nemesis, Lisa Bellow, the most popular girl in her eighth grade class. The minutes tick inexorably by, and Meredith lurches between comforting the sobbing Lisa and imagining her own impending death. Then the man orders Lisa Bellow to stand and come with him, leaving Meredith behind.
After Lisa’s abduction, Meredith spends most days in her room. As the community stages vigils and searches, Claire, Meredith’s mother, is torn between relief that her daughter is alive and helplessness over her inability to protect or even comfort her child. Her daughter is here, but not. How can life ever move forward again?
The Fall of Lisa Bellow is edgy and original, a hair-raising exploration of the ripple effects of an unthinkable crime, for readers who enjoyed Everything I Never Told You and Room.
Praise for Susan Perabo's short stories:
‘Explores the very human question - in surprising and original ways - of what it really means to be afraid’ Elizabeth Strout, bestselling author of My Name is LucyBarton on The Broken Places
‘Darkly beautiful stories about love and loss and every gradation between. Each one is suffused with astonishing wit and tenderness. Well worth the wait!’ Jenny Offill, New York Times bestselling author of Dept. of Speculation on Who I Was Supposed to Be
‘There's only one way to read Susan Perabo, and that's breathlessly. Each story in Who I Was Supposed to Be crackles with narrative electricity, and every one made me want to stand and cheer’ Richard Russo
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781471163418 |
| PRICE | A$29.99 (AUD) |
Featured Reviews
Jennifer C, Reviewer
‘Why? Why would a robber become a kidnapper?’
Two eighth-grade girls witness an armed robbery in a sandwich shop. One of the girls is kidnapped by the robber, the other girl is left behind. Why? Meredith Oliver is the girl left behind, and while she figures that Lisa Bellow was taken because she weighed less and was prettier and more popular, she really can’t move past Lisa’s abduction. What if they’d both been abducted? What if Lisa knew her abductor?
The Oliver family has had a traumatic year. Meredith’s older brother, Evan, a high school baseball star, had his left eye and eye socket crushed by a foul ball. He is still coming to terms with his injury, still trying to adjust. Meredith’s parents, Mark and Claire, are dentists who share a practice. This novel is about how the Oliver family deal with these events, from the perspectives of Meredith and Claire.
‘Grief and hope were cruel bedfellows, incompatible.’
Claire wants to protect her children; Mark realises that they need space. Meredith becomes obsessed with Lisa’s disappearance; Evan works on his own dreams. And what about Lisa Bellow’s mother? Can the Oliver family survive? How?
Reading this novel was like being an observer, unable to intervene in any meaningful way, in another family’s crisis. I felt for Meredith, as she moves between relief at being left behind and guilt at surviving. I could understand her freezing as the impact of events hit her, and then rebelling. How do parents handle this effectively, without adding to the trauma already experienced or alienating the child? But what about Lisa? I wanted answers which Ms Perabo has chosen not to give.
Did I enjoy this novel? No. Would I read more novels by this author? Absolutely. In this novel, Ms Perabo raises a number of uncomfortable issues, creates less than perfect (and completely human) characters. By focussing this novel on Meredith and her experiences, Ms Perabo reminds us that trauma is varied and complex and that sometimes, even in fiction, there are no satisfactory answers.
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster (Australia) for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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