The Story of a 'Restless' Spirit

RESTLESS (Bloomsbury USA 2007)
Author, William Boyd

Literary spy thrillers have become a new favorite genre of mine. RESTLESS by William Boyd is about as literary as they come. The writing has a certain lyrical rhythm to it, the sentences running long, strung together by commas, sort of like this one only longer. And Boyd loves to use words that evoke marvelous imagery, likes description such as that of a manor house "falling down, on its last woodwormed legs, giving up its parched ghost to entropy. Sagging tarpaulins covered the roof of the east wing, rusting scaffolding spoke of previous vain gestures at restoration and the soft yellow Cotswold stone of its walls came away in your hand like wet toast."

See what I mean?

In the "interminable hot summer of 1976, that summer when England reeled, gasping for breath, pole-axed by the unending heat," our protagonist, single mom Ruth Gilmartin, finds out that her mother isn't Sally Gilmartin of London at all, but a Russian emigre named Eva Delectorskaya (try saying that ten times fast). Eva was recruited by the British Secret Service in 1939, after her brother died working for them. Eva's brought into the intelligence fold by a mysterious man named Lucas Romer--a "swarthy" man "with dense eyebrows, uncurved,like two black horizontal dashes beneath his high forehead and above his eyes," who also has "very white, even teeth," which he occasionally bares in an intriguing smile.

Ruth's mother tells her about this. But not all at once. She spoons out the story one chapter at a time. And, in between, we get a chapter from Ruth's life. Needless to say, Ruth has a hard time believing any of this at first. She's got enough on her hands trying to raise her son, Jochen, without benefit of a partner, while working as an English tutor for foreign students attending Oxford University. And then other complications ensue. Ruth doesn't want to have to deal with her Mum going all dotty on her.

But Mum's not dotty. She's right as rain and this spy story is the truth (stranger than fiction, as they say). She continues to provide Ruth one chapter at a time--in order to work out the story's imperfections, she says--but of course it's a writer's trick. It's just Boyd saying, "Wait for it . . ."

And as each woman's tale unfolds, they eventually find past and present coming together. Ruth ends up getting pulled into her mother's narrative, so to speak, though for the most part they have separate stories, that run in interesting parallel ways.

Regardless of how you feel about lengthy sentences, rich with description, a great yarn (or two, really) awaits you along with them in this book.

Ruth is also a likeable character, whether she's kidding with her son or cursing out a patronizing man. She's full of keen, funny observations and she has an interesting life, though quite different from her mother's. Her mother's is just amazing. And, even if Ruth is technically the protagonist (I'd say she is--her part is in first person and Eva's is in third, thus letting the reader identify more with Ruth), her mother's story is nonetheless the main event.

And, of course, as there always are in spy thrillers, there's a big twist. I saw it coming the moment it was set up (I'm not sure whether being a writer myself or a voracious reader is to blame), but that was okay. The question then became when will the twist happen, how and (more to the point) why?

Those questions were answered satisfactorily enough for me, and being a spy novel there was enough double-cross and triple-cross action to make your head spin trying to follow it completely. And, again, that's fine. Because, along with the story, which hums along to its fitting conclusion, there's this overlying theme of questioning how well we know those closest to us. Plus an exploration of the mindset necessary to survive playing spy games. Which, in a word, is: restless.