Patrick Anderson’s August 16, 2010 Washington Post review of Laura Lippman's I'd Know You Anywhere claims that the novel succeeds because it is able to "transcend" its genre. "Some people would segregate Lippman as a crime or thriller writer," he writes. "That's a shame. She's one of the best novelists around, period."
There exists, however, an alternate view of the reasons for the critical success of Lippman's standalone novels as compared to her excellent Tess Monaghan mystery series. Mystery novels develop as a search for truth – for the identity of the criminal or for the facts leading up to the crime. Inherent to their structure, then, is the belief that truth exists. "Literary fiction," as Anderson labels it, is much less positive about that conclusion. Lippman's 2009 novel, Life Sentences provides a case in point.
Life Sentences, in which memoir writer Cassandra Fallows sets out to solve a mystery, fails dismally as a piece of mystery fiction. Cassandra, who has won wide acclaim for her two memoirs, selects the story of a former Baltimore schoolmate, Calliope Jenkins, as the subject for her next work. Calliope spent seven years in prison for her refusal to comment on the disappearance and presumed death of her infant son.
Although discovering the truth behind the Calliope Jenkins story provides the reason for Cassandra's return to Baltimore, Lippman delays her development of that plot line until the last third of the novel. Then she concludes it with unusual haste, as if it were merely incidental to her book. And it is.
What distracts Lippman from her ostensible mystery plot is the question with which the novel begins. “Why do you get to write the story?" a woman asks Cassandra at a book signing. She then follows this question with another concerning Cassandra's memoirs, "Did you get permission to write them?" Confused, Cassandra asks, “Permission to write about my own life?” The woman responds, “But it’s not just your life.”
Cassandra gradually learns that she must must give up sole ownership of what she had considered "her" past. When she urges her father to tell the story of his rescue of her stepmother, Annie, during the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King. Jr. "It’s your story,” Cassandra says. Her father replies, “It was. Somehow it became yours.”
Later, Cassandra's former schoolmate, Tisha, points to an inaccurate portrayal of Tisha's birthday party in Cassandra's first memoir. Questioning both Cassandra's accuracy and her authority, Tisha asks,“It was my party. What was it doing in your book?" Once she has realized she does not own the past, Cassandra must also accept that the version of it which she has presented in her memoirs may be false.
Life Sentences fails as a mystery novel simply because it recognizes that the truth may not exist. It succeeds as a literary work through its presentation of the complexity of one's personal reality.
To say literary fiction "transcends" mystery fiction suggests, however, that mystery fiction is inferior. What Cassandra learns in Life Sentences is that multiple interpretations of reality are possible. The truth might not be "out there," but then again it, possibly, might be. The objective of mystery fiction remains a worthwhile one.
Carol Thomas originally published this article on Suite101 on April 10, 2009 under the title "Laura Lippman's Life Sentences: Author Uses Mystery Genre to Explore Writers Responsibility Theme." She has updated it and added links to her current Examiner.com articles.
For more information:
Laura Lippman to be 2010 president of Mystery Writers of America
Laura Lippman’s ‘I’d Know You Anywhere’ and ‘Every Secret Thing' make headlines
Ostar Enterprises acquires television option for Tess Monaghan series
When good writers get bored: What mystery authors write after publishing a successful series
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