THE LOVERS by Vendela Vida (HarperCollins), 225 pages, $27.99 cloth. Rating: NNN
Novelist and screenwriter (Away We Go) Vendela Vida might be a victim of her own rep. Her new book, The Lovers, has a lot going for it, but it falls short of the intensity and vividness of her previous release, Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name.
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For one thing, the new novel tries to do much less. It’s got a slim story about grieving widow Yvonne, who, hoping for some soothing memories, goes to Turkey, where she and her husband honeymooned. She’s renting a house from Ali, who’s met all her basic holiday requirements, including a car and someone to clean the house.
A developing friendship with Ahmet, a young local boy, elicits all the mothering feelings Yvonne’s had to repress for her recovering alcoholic daughter and almost too perfect son, Matthew. But she gets a little too close to Ahmet.
As usual, Vida offers worthwhile insights, especially into the naïveté of American travellers. Yvonne becomes an easy target for scammers and completely loses her perspective when a new, worldly friend confides that she’s about to break up a marriage. Vida’s also expert at evoking the ways people’s personal baggage can distort their reactions to simple situations.
This is an intriguing story with a complex, sympathetic character. But unlike Let The Northern Lights, The Lovers lacks those wow moments of spectacular prose. You get the feeling that Vida was writing fast, as if in a hurry to move on to her next project.
Still, even when she’s not in top form, she’s a smart, engaging writer.
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