I would like to start this review with the disclaimer that I
love Dawn French. I think she’s fabulous and very funny and the only time I’ve
ever been reprimanded on an airplane was when I was watching The Vicar of Dibley and laughing too
loud. (The Coles ads, well…I guess everyone’s got to pay the bills.) I was
immensely looking forward to reading this book and certain that many chuckles
would ensue.
The thing is, though, they didn’t. The eponymous Silvia is
lying in hospital in a coma after having fallen off her balcony, landing three
floors below. The story is told from the first person point of view of six
characters: nurse Winnie, ex-husband Ed, sister Jo, housekeeper Tia, friend Cat
and daughter Cassie. As the story unfolds, we learn that each of these people
has a different view of who Silvia Shute is and what she means to them differs
vastly. Silvia has made some decisions in her life that her family doesn’t
understand and, while she is lying in hospital, they take the occasion to
address their grievances with her to her unmoving body.
The first problem I had with the novel is that two of the six
main characters have their speech written in dialect – Winnie in a Jamaican lingo
- “Right, sidung ‘pon dat chair, sista. Yu better start talking. Gimme some reasons
for dis craziness” (p193). No, just no. Tia, the Asian housekeeper, oh so
amusingly refers to Silvia as “Mrs Shit”: “Tia has been taught to swear by her
two sons who were born and grew up in England, and who amuse themselves by
cajoling her into using utterly inappropriate language. She’s not stupid, she
knows they are having a laugh at her expense, but she can’t be bothered to
deduce exactly why, and frankly, she doesn’t care” (p31). Again, just no. It’s cringeworthy.
The second problem I had with the novel is that it just
doesn’t make any sense. I understand that the whole point of the novel with its
multiple storytellers is that we understand how multifaceted people are and
that different people mean different things to different people, but there is
no cohesiveness within the character of Silvia. Even timelines were confused
and illogical and changed inexplicably from chapter to chapter.
**SPOILER ALERT**
Ed tells us that Silvia systematically destroyed his
self-esteem, which lead to the end of their marriage. Cassie has a
four-year-old daughter and was kicked out of the family home one week after
telling her mother Silvia that she was pregnant, so the end of the marriage was
at least four and a half years ago. But then we find out that the end of the marriage
was precipitated because Silvia helped Cat dispose of her dead husband’s body,
which happened three years ago, so Cassie can’t have been kicked out over four
years ago. Then there’s all this stuff about Cassie living with Ed and Ed’s mum
but then halfway through the novel she all of a sudden has a boyfriend Ben who
she’s had since he got her pregnant and has been really great and supportive
but if that is true then all of the stuff Ed said isn’t. And how can Ed afford
to buy a field and plant it with really really boringly described trees but
spends four and a half/three/however long sleeping on a couch in his mother’s
one-bedroom apartment? It doesn’t make
any sense. It would absolutely not have been hard for an editor or a
proof-reader to draw up a timeline to ensure basic consistency across the
storylines rather than really gaping and unbelievable plot holes.
Also, if a coked-up doctor who you suspect is abusive enough
a person that you need to isolate your whole family, including your
unborn grandchild, from her turns up at your house high as a kite with a dead husband in
her trunk, you call the police.
Silvia’s motivation to begin a relationship with Cat and cut herself off from
her whole family feels really unrealistic and I didn’t buy it at all. None of
the aspects of Silvia gel and, for this novel to be successful, this needed to
happen.
Finally, the worst thing for me is the stereotypes. The
Asian housekeeper steals from her employer. Of course the professionally successful
lesbian is a drug-addicted abusive insane person (those bitches be crazy!). The sister is a hippy who
wants to burn sage and place crystals everywhere and is totally clueless about
normal human social interaction. Dawn French, I’ve watched your work – you’re
better than this. Penguin (Australia), whose “Australian” book is peppered with
–ize endings, you’re better than this too. All in all, a very disappointing
effort from a wonderfully talented woman and a publishing house that should
have produced a better book.
Two stars.
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