Me and the Fat Man

As she has demonstrated in previous books, Myerson excels at creating troubled, self-destructive heroines who become embroiled in bizarre situations which Myerson describes so matter-of-factly that the disjunction between the character's life and a normal one is even more pronounced. In Sleepwalking, the reader felt as removed from reality as the protagonist; the difference here is the strong emotional involvement engendered as the circumstances of Amy's life are gradually revealed. A 27-year-old waitress in a small British town, blonde, attractive Amy feels incapable of love, never having received any parental affection during her frightening childhood. Even her new husband seems remote, a stranger. Reckless in her need to experience a thrill of emotion, she picks up men in the park, but those furtive sexual encounters leave her even more numb and detached. The secretive, untrusting Amy is intrigued when a 60ish man named Harris claims to have known and adored her mother, who was only 15 when Amy was born on a small Greek island where she had fled from England. Amy was six when her mother drowned. Half-buried memories of her childhood rise to the surface with Harris's curiously selective recollections; inforlorn gratitude, and also at Harris's bizarre urging, Amy comes on to Gary, an obese but tender man in his 20s who lives with Harris. It is Gary, surprisingly, who unlocks Amy's heart, awakening love of several kinds, but also inviting tragedy as events escalate in a relentless but stunning progression. Myerson's perfect control of narrative allows Amy to describe an erotic act in shockingly graphic terms, and in the next breath, to confess her inner desolation with poignant effect. The layers of secrets and the swell of grief that build dramatic tension may not hold up to rational scrutiny after the narrative closes, but while under its haunting spell, one cannot put this book down. (May)