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Novel set in London, rural Sussex and France

6th June 2017

The Night Visitor by Lucy Atkins, novel set in London, rural Sussex and France

Professor Olivia Sweetman seemingly has it all – a successful career as a TV presenter and well-respected historian, a supportive husband, David, and three happy, well-balanced children. On top of that, she has just produced a novel which looks set to top the bestseller lists. Atkins opens her novel with a wonderfully symbolic scene – Olivia has been placed by the publicists high above the heads of her audience at the book launch to make her address. She sees their upturned faces filled with admiration. But she can take no pleasure in it; she wishes she could open her wings and fly away, for Olivia has a secret that could bring all her wonderful successes toppling down. As she scans the crowd below her, she worries that someone might be able to see up her full-skirted dress … and that she might fall … and, above all, she dreads to see one particular face in the crowd – that of her research assistant, Vivian, who is the only one who knows Olivia’s secret. What’s more, Vivian has her own secret and it’s one that gives her no reason to be fond of Olivia.

Novel set in London, rural Sussex and France

Atkins provides two narrators in this novel – Olivia and Vivian – and both are pretty disturbing and not entirely likeable. Vivian is a very interesting depiction of an autistic spectrum disorder character, but what I really liked about Atkins’ portrayal of both is that she manages to make the reader uncomfortable – it’s very difficult to decide what the truth is about each character and, consequently, our sympathies are constantly shifting and the sense of unease is deepened. This is a thrilling page-turner of a novel, with some very startling surprises. The fact that the novel is largely set in two idyllic rural places in Sussex and France contributes to the unsettling feel, for it is in those two places that she chooses to play out two of the most disturbing scenes and the contrast between the beauty of the setting and the brutality in human nature is keenly felt.

Vivian’s field of expertise is beetles, specifically the dung beetle and Atkins tells us in her acknowledgements that she fell in love with the dung beetle while researching this novel. Her love is clearly seen in her writing for this novel is rich with beetle imagery and symbolism. Vivian follows Olivia to France explaining her sudden appearance in the same area as a mission to document and record harlequin ladybirds but she tells the reader that she has specifically followed Olivia to “pin her down at last”. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Atkins intends us to see Olivia as resembling the more glamorous, beautiful and ultimately destructive harlequin, whereas Vivian is more like the hard-working, essential, uncelebrated dung beetle. The conclusion of the novel leaves the reader with some serious thinking to do on that score, which just adds to the rich experience that The Night Visitor offers.

Don’t plan to eat or sleep while reading this novel – you won’t have time – and prepare yourself for becoming irrationally attached to dung beetles.

Ellen for the TripFiction Team

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