Sister Noon

After very much enjoying "We are All Completely Beside Ourselves", I leapt at the chance to pick this up from the Waterstones "Buy one, get one half price" display. The epigram, "Words were invented so that lies could be told" seemed intriguing and potentially very clever, with the setting of 1890s San Francisco as a new one for me, adding to the intrigue. I was hoping for something similar to "Beside Ourselves", however I was utterly disappointed.

This novel is, at its heart, just gossip, that's the main point of it. It's based solely on what some characters think of others and what may or may not be true about them. This could be interesting if there were any secrets, but the gossip just sort of fizzles out with no conclusion. The reader is left utterly clueless. It might be fair to say "the reader has to decide for themselves what is true", but is it really worth it? Is there no shock twist? Nothing revealed at all? No. There is absolutely nothing. What this novel lacks is a plot. The characters, in part, are largely based on real people, especially Mary Ellen Pleasant, the most mysterious character in the novel. Fowler does in fairness describe the setting beautifully and there are moments when I felt some empathy for Lizzie, the protagonist. However, aside from a very small development in Lizzie's life happening towards the end of the novel (one which the title basically gives away anyway, and which isn't worth 250 odd pages of build up) nothing of any significance happens. There are one or two moments of plot, but when you're remembering a page on which a protagonist gets lost briefly in a corridor as one of the most eventful moments in the novel, well, lets just say the novel is hardly riveting.

 

The novel did strike a chord initially, as on page 12 Ms Pleasant comes out as a "Coloured Woman", and it was interesting to see how people perceived race differently, especially in light of Rachel Dolezal's recent statements in the media. This, however, like every other potentially good idea in the book amounts to absolutely nothing. Characters come and go like they have no importance, and with whatever tiny plot there was being side-lined for everything that simply wasn't interesting, "Sister Noon" quickly became a drag. I wouldn't recommend it, unless you want to read something purely for the interest of another setting. Afterwards I used it to squash two moths.

 

3/10