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Book Reviews
Foreign City
Thursday, 02 June 2005
• Tamaki and Districts Times
Foreign City
. By: Charlotte Grimshaw. Publisher: Random House.
THIS is Charlotte Grimshaw’s third novel and it is both stunning and disturbing.
The Remuera resident’s first novel 'Provocation' was set in Auckland and based on the author’s experience as a lawyer.
This time the city is London. Anna Devine is a young mother and painter, married to the straight and honest Damien who works in advertising.
They live in a poky flat with two children El (Lucy) and Harry. By chance, the couple find a huge flat for very little rent and move in to what is expected to be a better life.
Anna takes El to Tashina during the day while she continues with her painting (she has talent and sold several works in Auckland). Tashina does not charge much for the babysitting. She and her husband known only as ‘Him’ come from Bangladesh and ‘Him’ is studying medicine and seldom talks.
Then comes a late night phone call from New Zealand. It is Lois Mark who wants Anna to track down her son Robert. Anna is reluctant – John was best friends with her dead brother Julian and never attended the funeral after his tragic accident.
In the meantime, an encounter with the owner of the flat next door will have serious consequences for Anna.
Henderson is rich, an Oxford educated writer whose father was a Polish Jew who spent part of his teenage years in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Henderson is interested in Anna and her paintings and he shows her several briefcases of his father’s journals and letters about his wartime experiences.
They embark on an affair. Anna is guilty about deceiving the loyal Damien, but cannot stop herself in indulging in dangerous behaviour.
By chance she meets Robert Mark and is rude to him, but later relents. This leads to another sexual encounter.
'Foreign City' is actually three books in one – the first about Anna and her marriage and its eventual deterioration.
The next is in Auckland in another time. Justine Devantier is reading another novel to find out about its author Richard Black and possibly about herself and her painter mother Anelia (an older Anna). Anelia is now a famous, highly regarded artist whose behaviour is decidedly bohemian. Justine does not know who her father is.
Then in a fictional city, a man looks for a woman he knew long ago and a policeman follows a young nanny to the son of the leader of a band of criminals.
In anyone’s hands but Charlotte Grimshaw 'Foreign City' could have degenerated into a mess.
However her deft hand with characterisation, irony and wit and an eye for deviant behaviour makes gripping reading.
In 'Provocation', Grimshaw showed real promise.
Now in 'Foreign City' it has been fulfilled.
