Review - Someone Like Me by MR Carey

Cover design by Duncan Spilling

Someone Like Me
M R Carey
Orbit, 8 November 2018
HB, 512pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of this book via NetGalley (thank you loads Nazia!)

Someone Like Me is an intriguing mix - supernatural horror, but one that also wonderfully captures the graininess, the hard dilemmas and nagging constraints, of ordinary life; an abusive ex-husband, compromises over healthcare due to the limits of insurance, the need to earn a living in tough times.

Set in Larimer, a suburb of Pittsburgh, it's a step away from Carey's previous UK focussed books, both the fungoid zombie chronicles of The Girl With all the Gifts and The Boy on the Bridge and the spooky prison drama of Fellside - though perhaps closer in atmosphere to the latter). Overall it put me in mind of Lauren Beukes' US inner city horrors The Shining Girls and Broken Monsters.  As in those, the city almost takes on the attributes of a character, throwing out bizarre paradoxes and horrors as the dark secrets of an overgrown motel in a forgotten part of town reach out to downtrodden single mother Liz Kendall and troubled teen Fran Watts.

Carey's writing is at its most chilling, though, as he brings to life in the reader's mind Liz's thoroughly unpleasant husband - her ex-husband as she keeps having to make clear - Marc. A plausible, manipulative and violent man ("Once you give yourself permission to treat the person you're supposed to one like shit on your shoe, you don't ever rescind that permission") he wore Liz down until she was only an echo of the woman he married, and despite divorce, she isn't free of him yet - his shadow hangs over much of this book.

Carey's portrayal of this man is meticulous and convincing. It's done largely through the effect on her and her kids, showing how she was changed form the person she had been ("It was the first time Liz gave up something that turned out to have been part of her own identity. A lot of surprising things faded away... her self-confidence, her sense of humour, even part of her sex drive.")

In extremis, Liz finds the ability from somewhere to fight back against Marc. But once awakened, the part of her that was able to do that just doesn't want to go away again. It - she - has plans of her own. Liz seems caught between two cunning, and ruthless personalities, either of which could destroy her or at least, her way of life. She begins to doubt her sanity, but help isn't easy to get and how much can she actually say faced with a police investigation and upcoming court battle against Marc?
While Liz has welcome support from neighbours and a police officer BeeBee, that unwelcome support from the other part of her, the one with an agenda, throws everything into jeopardy.

I really, really enjoyed Carey's portrayal of hard working, long suffering Liz,  doing her best to bring up Zac and Molly ("Zac in particular needed to be saved from [Marc's] influence, from having that poisonous macho pantomime in his line of sight every day of his life"), just about making ends meet on a low salary, having to cope with so much but never giving up. Indeed the extent of her tenacity, her love, would be hard to overstate and I can't explain why - I won't reveal what's actually going on here because a large part of the book is devoted to untangling that mystery. Liz's son Zac teams up with Fran to get to the bottom of it, because Fran's closely bound up with it too. If Liz is suffering violence and abuse in the present, Fran suffered in the past when she was kidnapped as a child. Still beset by nightmares and hallucinations, she to has tried to rebuild her life, assisted by Dr Southern at budget therapy sessions covered by her kidnapper's medical insurance.

Fran has other help, too - Lady Jinx, an armoured, sword wielding fox who's come from a kids' TV programme. Jinx is a delight to read. The way that Carey interleaves her with mundane conversations and activities, has her provide a running commentary on events and - at times - shows her as genuinely sad, wounded and grieving, is  masterpiece of writing. Jinx is as real as any other character here, even while Fran knows that she is "just" a part of her unconscious. And there are others too - like Beth, who has been through things you wouldn't be able to imagine, can never go home, and wants a place to be safe and live her life. I also liked Fran's dad, a sensible man doing his best to bring up his daughter after his wife's death.

While perhaps seeming a little slow at first (after the immediate blazing opening) this is a book to cherish and linger over: Just pay close attention, enjoy the texture of Carey's writing and take in the story - whether the daily routine of Liz's life, insights on race and high school (Zac is white, Fran in black, which features in their relationship's ups and downs), policing, life on the edge of poverty,  or just the gradual construction of the trap in which everyone here is caught. Watch for that - you'll see it closing but you might not see it... if you get my drift.

Relax and take all that, and more, in, as the sense of menace gathers and the tempo quickens, because once things pick up... just wow. You'll be clenched tighter than a clenched fist. There is danger - physical danger, moral danger, risks to relationships, risks to reputations and real damage that will take time to heal - if it can ever heal at all. Mysteries do seem become clear, but at the end, a shadow still seems to hang over Liz and Fran, and I wonder if they can ever really get clear of it?

An excellent book all round, certainly up with the best of Carey's writing to date and possibly a shade better.