Author: Rebecca Gransden
Publisher: Cardboard Wall Empire
Genre: Mysterious Fiction
Length: 242 pages
anemograph: (ə·nem′ə·graf, -gräf) noun Meteorol. An instrument that makes an automatic record of the velocity, force, or direction of the wind.
anemogram: An anemographic record
From start to finish Gransden’s work had a haunting feel to it. The description itself required to ask her before I agreed to review the book if I should be concerned… if there were any Lolita elements to the story. I was not emotionally in a place to handle anything involving molestation or inappropriate relationships.
No, the author assured me. No, I assure you.
Still, page by page, there’s the constant wonder if you’re about to get hoodwinked by the story. Gransden’s prose is songlike and her subject matter is mysterious and disconcerting, without ever crossing a line. Or did it? I’m still not sure.
Just as a ghost-like girl weaves in and out of the woods, in and out of society, almost like a dream, the story weaves in and out of itself – chapter-less – smoothly, but with the momentum of a sharp breeze at your back on a day you know you should have worn a sweater.
Something of the story feels a little Elizabeth George to me, and a little bit Chuck Palahniuk. (Two authors with nothing in common, except somehow they hung out in the recesses of my brain while I read Gransden’s work.) I wonder what she thinks of them.
I write this review now because the author has been waiting for it for sometime. I was sent this book from her in exchange for an honest review, but I think I’d have to sleep on it a bit before I truly know what I think of it. It deserves pondering, and discussion. It deserves a re-read in varying moods to see if that changes my own perception of things. How much of what I feel now is Gransden’s writing skill and the mood she wanted to portray and how much is because of my own current mood?
Anemogram would make for an excellent book club selection and I’d recommend it to a group who typically chooses mysteries, although I’m hesitant to place it in the category.