Crossways: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and disturbing
Review: Another disturbing, fascinating novel by Kohler. This one is set in apartheid South Africa with themes of loyalty, obsession, predatory sexuality and abuse as well as sister kinship. This is my second Kohler (the first one being Children of Pithiviers which also kept me in my reading chair) so it begins to emerge that the sister theme is important.



Rating:
Summary: "With Marion, no one would laugh at him, call him names."
Review: Dr. Louis Marais is in intensive care in the hospital in South Africa as this novel opens, recovering from an accident that claimed the life of his wife Marion. Louis, an Afrikaner of hard-scrabble background, has met and married Marion, an Englishwoman from a prominent family which regards Afrikaners as "not people, but brutes with hair on their backs." Recognizing from the outset that the hospital is the "safest place" for him, he knows that "he has to be careful if he wants to see [the three children] again."

When Marion's sister and soulmate Kate arrives from Paris for Marion's funeral, she regards the accident as suspicious, as does the reader, since Louis has already made pointed comments to that effect (and because the book jacket summary gives away the main plot). As Kate investigates, aided by John, the elderly, almost blind Zulu house servant who sometimes sees Marion's ghost, Louis reminisces from his sickbed about his life before and during his marriage--his relationships, his goals, his loss of cultural identity as an Afrikaner, and his abusive temperament. The action builds up to its climax when Louis decides, on his own, to leave the hospital to visit the children and his wife's family.

A novel of psychological horror, Crossways differs from the psychological horror stories of some other writers of this genre--Patrick McCabe, for example. From the outset the reader knows the direction of plot--only the details and characters' backgrounds need to be filled in. Unfortunately, too, the reader recognizes Louis as damaged and dangerous, but he has no qualities which inspire any empathy. The author suggests through Louis's comments that his loss of cultural identity has contributed to his derangement, and the memories and thoughts of John, the house servant, add to the suggestion that this is a main theme. John, the most sympathetic character in the novel, remarks that "without tradition and law, how can people live?" Yet the difference in scale between John's loss of his Zulu traditions and Louis's losses makes this cultural explanation for Louis's madness unrealistic.

The author limits and controls what we know about the characters, telling us their inner thoughts, rather than showing these characters in action and allowing the reader to draw conclusions. The excitement and suspense develop through the withholding of key background information, rather than through the reader's observations of the characters' behavior. The intense psychological approach, the graphically described evidence of past violence, and the considerable suspense, as the reader awaits the characters' fateful destinies, however, will appeal to lovers of Gothic suspense and psychodrama. (3.5 stars) Mary Whipple