Her Last Words - E.V. Kelly
She is so stunned by what she has seen and by her husband's lack of open reaction or acknowledgement of what has happened, that she says nothing. As their young son is in the car with them, she is unsure how to bring the matter up. Who was that woman? Why was she there? What even happened? She is perhaps unsure of what she saw, and unsure how to ask about it, but the longer she remains silent, we begin to suspect that on some level she doesn't really want to know or confront this.
The reasons for her hesitancy and uncertainty become clearer as we find out more about Jeff and Cassandra. They are fairly well-off, Jeff a lecturer in film studies at University College Dublin, Cassandra a child psychotherapist, the two of them living with their son Ted on an exclusive part of the east coast of Ireland below Dublin that they like to think of as the Irish Amalfi coast. That's an ambitious comparison, but that in itself is perhaps revealing of their status and desire not to let anything threaten their lifestyle.
We also know that Jeff has Italian connection through his work as a lecturer specialising in Italian cinema at UCD. We are then introduced to Nina Ruzza, a young woman of Italian heritage, who is applying to study for her PhD under Professor Hogan with an ambitious project on Fellini's 'La Strada'. The book follows two timelines, Cassandra intriguingly in a first person narrative in the aftermath of the event, struggling to understand and come to terms with what she has seen and figuring out what to do about it, Nina's timeline apparently in the months leading up to the event.
What is critical, or at least what I'm personally always looking for, is a diversion into the unknown away from the conventional. Not just in the concluding revelations, but something unusual in how the story is developing that you just can't put your finger on. We get it here. In some respects, yes, it's a wife confused and in denial that her husband may have been cheating on her with one of his pretty young students, but Cass's confusion stems partly from deeper trauma that is suddenly awakened. There are a mass of events that catch up on her, from childhood to more recent, and it becomes in a near debilitating flood that threatens to overwhelm her. Observed from the first person viewpoint, as I've remarked, makes that very interesting.
The middle of the book then, the mid-point where both Cassandra's and Nina's perspective on her relationship with Jeff is at a crux, achieves a terrific level of suspense that borders on delirium. It helps then - but not necessarily clarifies matters - that we also get a brief outside perspective in one or two chapters from Ted. Critically, we're really going to have to stick around for Jeff's take on what is going on, and whatever it might be - as the news reports of the death on Killiney beach come in - it doesn't look good.
I was initially somewhat disappointed by the conclusion then, afraid that it provided everything too neatly wrapped up and explained. It's not that it's conventional by any means, although some might find it contrived, but what surprised me more was that Nina's actions and communications are more 19th century German Romantic than Fellini inspired. Ultimately however, Kelly provides an authentic response to the revelations from everyone involved, achieving a cathartic and appropriate ending, rather than one that in another's hands could have been treated less sympathetically. Her Last Words is all the more impressive for overturning reader expectations.
Reading notes: Her Last Words by E.V. Kelly is published by Quercus on the 9th June 2022. Reviewed from a paperback advance proof provided by the publisher.
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