Softspoken, by Lucius Shepard

Some narrators are unreliable. The reader cannot trust everything they tell. In this novel, every character is unreliable. Motivations are unclear. Actions are suspect. Why do characters do what they do? Does the narrator believe what she says, or is this a complicated, albeit entertaining, lie?

The narrator’s name is Sanie, a deliberate play on words. She is living with her husband at his ancestral home in backwoods South Carolina while he studies for the bar exam. Sanie is bored and disillusioned. The weather itself is almost a character. The author uses the drowsy-hot, humid days and the lack of transportation to depict how completely Sanie is removed from the world. For entertainment, Sanie has taken to walking the miles to town, sitting on the porch of the gas station swilling beer, talking to the men who venture in. Meanwhile, back at the mansion, Sanie’s husband has closed himself off in the library while his sister wafts through the house like a shadow and his brother seems to drift in and out of a peyote induced dream. Sanie believes the house to be haunted, and her brother-in-law encourages this idea. He claims he sees the ghosts better when he is under the influence, so he shares his drugs with Sanie. Are the apparitions she sees real, or are they peyote hallucinations? When Sanie finally makes a decision to take care of herself and what she needs, her husband and his family show themselves for who they are. The conclusion is as nebulous as the novel, leaving the reader to decide what did, or did not happen.

I enjoyed this book very much. It is a short novel that drew me in quickly and was a speedy read. It made me think, and would be a good novel to read with someone else so discussion could be had. Some people might be put off by the dreamy tone of the writing.