Today it is my turn, and also the end of this fantastic BlogTour The Body Lies by Jo Baker. It's a literary crime thriller, but also fits into the category of a contemporary psychological thriller.
Jo Baker is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling Longbourn and A Country Road, A Tree.
Her new novel, The Body Lies, is a thrilling contemporary novel that explores violence against women in fiction but is also a disarming story of sexual politics.
Jo Baker lives with her family in Lancashire.
About the book
When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote countryside, it’s meant to be a fresh start, away from the big city and the scene of a violent assault she’s desperate to forget. But when one of her students starts sending in chapters from his novel that blur the lines between fiction and reality, the professor recognises herself as the main character in his book - and he has written her a horrific fate.
Will she be able to stop life imitating art before it's too late?
This was a cracker of a read. It delves into the world of sexual politics in the workplace and in this case specifically in a university environment. The boundaries are clear when you're in a school environment, but what happens when it's consenting adults instead?
There were so many things about this book that I liked. The subtlety, which gave it a more realistic feel. The style and the element of writing as a tool to intimidate, scare and malign. Then having the woman in a position of authority, thereby being in a position to abuse the power in an unequal relationship, but also being a potential target for someone willing to manipulate the system.
The boldest move however was writing the story in first person and leaving the narrator unnamed. In doing so the author allows her main character to become all women, her thoughts and fears are synonymous with women all over the world.
This is especially evident in the first part of the story, when she is assaulted in front of people in a public area. This event sets certain coping mechanisms in motion. Her inability to comprehend her trauma, including the assault, chips away at her life and relationships. Her reaction or lack of it, says a lot about the systemic violence and abuse against women in our society. The reactions of those around her speaks volumes.
It's a literary crime thriller, but also fits into the category of a contemporary psychological thriller. The author gives us the depth and style of literary fiction, and simultaneously the thrill of a more contemporary read. A perfect combination of the two.
Buy The Body Lies at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.Publisher: Doubleday; pub date 13 Jun. 2019. Buy at Amazon com.
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