After greatly enjoying the book and the author’s subsequent film adaptation of ‘Personal Velocity’some years back I immediately purchased Rebecca Miller’s second novel ‘The Private Lives of Pippa Lee’.The book is an odd one in several ways and unusually I have a polarised opinion of it too.In general my opinion on books falls into one of there categories:love,dislike or indifference,yet this book was none of those.
It gets off to a slow start with Pippa and her much older husband moving to a retirement village.Pippa’s husband is 80 and becoming infirm,yet Pippa is only in her 50s and soon begins to feel stifled by the geriatrics surrounding her.Several odd things begin to happen to her whilst she is asleep,such as being unaware that she has cooked and eaten fried breakfasts,entire cakes and even leaving the house and driving to a local shop.This was one aspect of the story that interested me as I find sleep disorders fascinating,so I was slightly dissappointed that this area wasn’t developed further.As the plot unfolds so does Pippa’s past and the hazy,free wheeling excitement of her youth contrasts with the monotony of the present.It is in the sequences set in the past that Pippa shines as a character,one who is independent and spirited and has a rather disturbing relationship with her Mother.If the whole book had been set during her earlier years I would have enjoyed it much more,but as it stands the book only engaged me half of the time.The later chapters in particular see several predictable developments which are needless and seem to be there only to convince the reader it was worth persevering to the end.
Much of the writing and the ideas demonstrated here are solid but the story itself never quite takes off,which as shame given the obvious talent and imagination of the author.
Tags: a year in reading, Rebecca Miller
