The Library Suicides by Fflur Dafydd

You can get in. But you can’t get out. Welcome to the library…

Twins Ana and Nan are lost after the death of their mother. Everyone knows who drove Elena, the renowned novelist, to suicide – her long-term literary critic, Eben. But the twins need proof if they’re going to get revenge.

Desperate to clear his name, Eben requests access to Elena’s diaries at the National Library where the twins work, and they see an opportunity. With careful planning, the twins lock down the labyrinthine building, trapping their colleagues, the public and most importantly Eben inside. But as a rogue security guard starts freeing hostages, the plan unravels. And what began as a single-minded act of revenge blooms into a complex unravelling of loyalties, motives and what it is that makes us who we are.

Hauntingly written, with a fresh, captivating voice, The Library Suicides is an intensely memorable and provocative literary read for fans of high concept thrillers that break the mould, and books about books and the concept of the written word.

---

The Library Suicides introduces the reader to Ana and Nan who are grieving for their mother, Elena, after her suicide some months earlier.  They believe that their mother was driven to that action by literary critic Eben Prytherch and the so called Smotherhood – a group (predominantly, if not entirely, male) that seeks to silence those authors who annoy them.  The novel focuses on the twins as they seek their revenge after months of careful planning and the laying of groundwork.  Told mostly over the course of a single day, their plan goes awry from the beginning, although they persevere despite the challenges this introduces.  I won’t go into the plot in any more detail as it would be far too easy to reveal too much, but it’s a tense novel as we see the twins attempt to bring their plan to fruition and the reader can’t help but wonder how far they’re prepared to go.

we’re the same person, you and I, aren’t we?

Ana and Nan are slightly odd characters, and the novel starts with them sharing a bath.  While this seems perfectly reasonable for children, for two women in their twenties, I found it a little unusual, although they do like to make a lot of their twinness and the idea that they were once, in the womb, one.  Despite this, it felt a little strange, as does them sharing a bed with each other.  I found it disconcerting, although that may have been the intention – to make the reader feel wrongfooted from the off, and if that is the case, it succeeded admirably.

What I did find interesting about them is that Ana, the eldest by twelve minutes, believes that she knows what Nan is thinking and that they are aligned in their thoughts.  The reader soon realises just how wrong she is.  Nan quickly proves herself to be an extremely secretive individual, and she knows more about their mother’s death than Ana does.  This adds an element of intrigue to the novel, as the reader wants to know what Nan knows, and why she’s chosen to keep it to herself.  Nan also proves to be a more ruthless individual against Ana’s more caring personality, and there was a sense throughout of Nan subtly manipulating her sister by letting her believe that they are more comparable than they are. 

While I didn’t take to Ana and Nan, a sympathetic character comes in the form of Dan Matthews, a security guard at the library where the twins work and the scene of their elaborate revenge.  He becomes an unwitting assistant to the twins, manipulated by them both, not even realising that there are two of them. A pawn and sacrificial lamb, I felt a great deal of sympathy for Dan, particularly upon learning of his background as a criminal (we don’t find out the nature of his crimes until later in the novel) who has a vague desire for redemption and to prove himself, and yet whose lack of self-belief holds him back, along with the prejudice he faces as everyone assumes that it’s just a matter of time until he reoffends.

The other main character in the novel and whose perspective we see is Eben, another unlikeable individual.  He sees himself as a great literary critic, and hounded Elena mercilessly during her life.  Anything she published was given a scathing review, even if he did little more than give the text a cursory glance.  He turned up at any events she did, always ready with a barbed comment.  He was obsessive in his desire to destroy her career, although Elena proved to be more resilient than he and the Smotherhood anticipated, for a long time, at least.  It feels a lot like internet trolling and the hate campaigns that can arise through social media and elsewhere, although Eben is at least visible and known to Elena – that he’s no keyboard warrior is perhaps the nicest thing I can say about him.

The novel is set in a near-future, unnamed country which sounds very much like Wales.  Following the Great Sickness, the details of which are never really revealed, the government has decided that physical books – as potential spreaders of germs – should be completely replaced by digital versions.  This leads to a very interesting sub-plot in the novel, and something that I personally would have loved to have seen brought to the fore and given more focus.  I would also have liked to have understood the dystopian nature of the setting in more detail as I found that the minimalist approach taken here – which can be successful – left me with more questions than answers. 

Overall, I found The Library Suicides to be an intriguing novel that became increasingly tense as the twins’ plan unfolded, building to a fantastic climax.  I liked the focus on books and the importance of the written word and literary history, although I personally would have liked those themes to have been explored in greater depth.