Claire North
Orbit Books/Hachette
Otago Daily Times July 30th 2016
Claire North (the sci-fi nom-de-plume of children’s author Catherine Webb) specialises in clever and edgy stories that play with the most primal of fears, the terror that lurks in the corner of the eye, and The Sudden Appearance of Hope is no exception.
Its heroine, Hope Arden is invisible, albeit in a psychological rather than a physical sense. Like Steven Moffat’s Silence, people can see her but forget as soon as they turn away. With limitless opportunities to create the perfect first impression and the ability to erase any indiscretion simply by walking away. This provides a freedom the rest of us sometimes dream of, but she is unable to engage in anything that requires any an ongoing relationship, including sustained medical attention or traditional employment. Still, Hope is a resourceful young woman, and having decided she is constitutionally better suited to life as a thief than as an assassin or spy, embarks upon a successful life of crime.
Then she steals a necklace from a woman whose family runs a multimillion-dollar company called Perfection, which produces an app that tracks every aspect of your life and provides advice on how become personally and socially ideal. The theft draws the attention of a pair of potential buyers whose interests are more than merely transactional: the tenacious Mugurski71, who has been hired by the company’s CEO to track her down, and Byron14, who wants her help to destroy Perfection.
Although Hope is deeply suspicious of Byron14, she is also tired of a life that is constant stream of first encounters and one-night stands and longs to be able to form a deeper connection with somebody. So when she learns that the final step to Perfection, a biofeedback protocol offered to those who achieve all the programme’s other prescriptions, might render her memorable, she agrees to assist Byron14 in exchange access. But the bargain has a high price, and Hope is eventually forced to choose between fulfilling her dream of re-entering the world and remaining true to the moral principles that she holds most dear.
It is hard to explain exactly what I find most compelling about North’s novels. I enjoy both the clever way in she leaves space for the imagination (I was not surprised to learn she is also a RADA-trained theatrical lighting designer), and the satisfaction of unravelling their intricate plot lines. But I am also fascinated by the questions she poses about the relationship between physical and psychological aspects of personal identity and how people with the power to escape the consequences of their actions can (and need) to maintain an inner ethical code. To paraphrase the message at the heart of this latest novel, even when we are not answerable to the ordinary strictures of society, there has to be a moment when even the most powerful must permit themselves to be defined by the world that surrounds them. Or, as Hope puts it, “I commit a crime, and only I remember my guilt…I look only at now, at this present tense, and ask myself what am I doing now? Who am I now?… Now I am the self that I wish to be, now I am a picture of who I have to be, now. Now. Now.”
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