Night by Night by Jane Messer

This is the first novel for Jane Messer who, we are told, is writing a second book as part of a Doctorate of Creative Arts &shy;– and, I must admit, that put me off a bit. Not that I think writers should be uneducated, but academic qualifications in ‘creative writing’ are still a bit suss as far as I’m concerned. I don’t like the thought that I’m reading someone’s term paper, or Master of Arts in Writing from John Hopkins University. This novel is basically about the fact that Lena Pasko, the first-person narrator, decides not to consummate her relationship with Fe, a young part-time female assistant Lena employs in her bookshop. There is a harasser who sends ineptly gathered newspaper clippings about various crimes and abusive letters. There is an apparent attempted break-in, and, finally, Lena’s shop is burgled and vandalised, but not seriously. This occurs exactly when Lena is turning down Fe’s invitation to go to bed o that Lena’s earlier suspicion that Fe is responsible for the threatening letters is proven to be wrong. Both Lena and her partner, Seth, have a strange relationship with Fe. They arrogantly think it is some sort of in loco parentis situation and that they are helping her to develop to her full potential. Seth goes to Bulgaria on a business trip and Fe stays with Lena and shares her bed, but nothing happens. Lena takes Fe up one her suggestion that they bath together and later, that they take their clothes off, wrap each other in cling plastic and take polaroids of each other. On Seth’s return, Lena and Seth talk about Fe and use her as a ‘strategy for arousal’, and it’s only when Seth discovers the photos in Lena’s handbag that he becomes at all concerned. He is disappointed that Lena has not recognised and acted on her feelings for Fe earlier. Meanwhile, Lena also does nothing about the anonymous hate mail and, when she does tell Seth, he has to force her to go to the police station where, again, nothing happens. The motif of a missing severed head from a murder victim flits through the novel for no apparent reason. Business is booming in the bookshop thanks to the bestseller Manic Exposure, ‘Australia’s answer to Psycho’, and Lena fantasises about her harasser. In between she gives us little homilies about the book trade and spends her sleepless nights copying quotes about sleep or lack of it. Lena Pasko comes across as a bored and boring affluent dink looking for some tame thrills. Without the harasser, or Fe, her life would be extremely dull. The Lena-Seth-Fe triangle has potential, since Seth is obviously not immune to Fe’s charms, but it really just fizzles out. The superimposition of the harasser looks like a gimmick to cog into the booming thriller market Lena isn’t sleeping for at least a month before the harassment begins, so the appearance of the harasser is not necessary to the plot. And the guy is so considerate. Within two weeks of the inept attempt to burn her shop, it’s business as usual, the letters stop arriving and Fe has gone overseas. Night by Night is not badly written, and yet, however trendy it may be, I’m not convinced about the success of using present tense throughout. I also can’t stand it when substantial chunks from other authors are quoted in fiction. In a way it’s cheating, isn’t it? If you wanted to read more than the odd sentence, you’d go to the original. At least Bruce Chatwin had the decency to put them all in one place in The Songlines so you could skip them easily. Night by Night is neither one thing or the other. As a novel about relationships, it barely even gets started, and as a thriller it doesn’t even get off the ground. In her next novel, perhaps Messer will decide to concentrate on one or the other. On the evidence of this book, I’d suggest she try the first.

Winifred Belmont

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Three recent short story collections

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The Cancer Finishing School: Lessons in laughter, love and resilience by Peter Goldsworthy

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