Andrew Davidson
Text Publishing
Otago Daily Times, 2008
Andrew Davidson’s captivation novel exemplifies the difficulty of taking things on face value. In this instance, the problem is that of mixed messages; the front cover is a sumptuous painting of a woman’s back adorned with tattooed wings, the blurb on the back describes is as “a brilliant love story, sweeping across centuries and continents.” No point for guessing my response to the latter-suffice it to say that I was less than hopeful as I turned the first few pages. But, as I soon discovered, this is not your typical romance. In fact the book should perhaps come with a ‘viewer discretion’ advisory instead.
The first few chapters describe in visceral detail what it feels like to sustain 3rd degree burns, which the narrator sustains in a car crash. Immobilised, grotesquely disfigured and in constant pain, his only goal is to recover to the point where he can kill himself (a plan that is, like his injuries, meticulously described). Before he has the chance to carry it out, however, he meets Marianne Engel, a beautiful, eccentric and gifted sculptor of grotesques, who claims to have been his wife centuries before. As he slowly recovers physically, she heals him emotionally and spiritually him with stories of love that survives death, and of their previous life together-none of which he believes except for tantalising details that leave him wondering…
It is impossible to explain the story in a mere 250 words, so I will let a picture say it all; this is a book best judged by its cover!
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