When faced with newfound feelings for Theo, the drummer of her band, married young mother Portia must decide whether to follow her heart or question her sanity. Going off her medication feels like waking up for the first time. But could this clarity be harmless daydreaming, or a symptom of something more serious?
Told from Portia’s and then her lover Theo’s unreliable perspectives, the close third-person narration takes us through a nonlinear story that revisits past events from multiple angles. Even when it comes to Nathan and Theo, perception and memory are multilayered and flawed. Plunkett applies a soft touch when rendering minds in turmoil, offering both reader and character relief through the escapes of music, love and small-town landscape.
Intimate, fractured ... Simultaneously sensitive to Portia’s perception and muddy in its chronology, the novel succeeds in accumulating a faceted psychological profile, but its indulgent length (including excursions into Theo’s point of view), the absence of plot dynamism, and the limited appeal of the characters leave it partially stranded. Stronger on empathy than engagement.
