Looking Glass Sound
by Catriona Ward
The first segment of Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward reads like a coming-of-age thriller. The narrator is an author, Wilder, who, shortly after the events portrayed, writes an account of summer/s spent with his family in a cottage inherited from an eccentric uncle at Whistler Bay, in Maine. Despite being a shy 16-year old, he befriends Nat and Harper, and the three spend glorious days exploring the beaches and coastal caves of the area. Their youthful escapades are clouded by concerns about the enigmatic “Dagger Man”, a shadowy figure who breaks into houses and takes photos of sleeping children. A gruesome discovery confirms that this story is more than an urban legend, and that the “Dagger Man” may also be linked to mysterious disappearances of young women over the years.
This first part of the book is gripping enough and could almost work as a standalone novella: a darker, adult, contemporary – and unexpectedly poetic – version of an Enid Blyton adventure. Besides its thriller/horror vibes, it also features typical elements of the coming-of-age novel including the exploration of budding sexual tensions between the three friends. (Wilder and Nat compete for Harper’s attention, but Wilder also feels physically drawn to Nat).
But this is just the beginning of a mind-bending work. What follows in the subsequent parts of the novel is that a different character lays claim to the facts recounted by Wilder, and asserts their right as “author” to recount the story from their own perspective. As readers, we therefore get to see the same events retold from different angles, as presented in unreliable narrations. Unreliable not only because personal perceptions differ, but also because some of the accounts are deliberately “fictionalised”. If this were not complicated enough, Ward adds a supernatural subtext, implying that magic has been used to trap characters within the pages (!)
Looking Glass Sound is a novel which, within the context of a
psychological horror story, explores themes of nostalgia, memory and
perspective, as well as the links between authorship, truth and fiction. In
doing so, it takes “meta-fiction” to confusing extremes. In fact, my
reservation about this novel is that the complexity ultimately feels rather
contrived (especially the magical/supernatural element in what is otherwise a
“realistic” novel) and one can easily get lost unless one is reading
attentively and taking notes. Explaining
the different narrative threads goes beyond the purpose of this review (and would
lead to several spoilers) but curious readers might wish to have a look at this
very helpful reddit thread...
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