Anything You Do Say by Gillian McAllister
Each and every day we all make hundreds of decisions both conscious and un. It is how we navigate our own little worlds and more often than not we are never given cause to give them a second thought. But the truth is that at any given moment one of these could give rise to consequences that we never foresaw. How then do you move on from this breaking point. When something we have done has such grave consequences that it not only will shatter our world but those who have been swept up in its vortex.
This is the basis of one of my favorite books I've read this year. When we approach most thrillers or crime novels we are given a strict set of rules for our narrative. They closely resemble those we have in the real world. What is don't cant be undone, time is linear and once a certain path is chosen that is us for the rest of the story. But what McAllister does is shows us two possible paths resulting from the same action. A single moment that splits into the multiverse giving us the reader a chance to see witness just what might happen if another path is chosen. Something we are very rarely afforded in real life.
But this isn't as simple as good versus evil or a right and wrong path. Whilst we are capable of standing outside the story from our hero and thus giving us a more lofty approach. This after all is the given ability of any reader to judge the protagonist's actions. It is always a much more tricky thing to be smack-bang in the middle of it. With adrenaline pumping and fear overriding our frontal cortex the choices we make can start to seem very irrational to the outside observer. After all, if it was just an accident why would you not stay and help. Surely the police will always see the truth in the matter and you will be vindicated in the choice you made.
Joanna to me feels very real and fleshed out, she is someone that could, in fact, be my friends or yours. Someone you talk to every day and the situation she finds herself in could in fact happen to anyone you know or maybe you. Within the first few pages of this book, McAllister does a great job of showing us how a single night out can start to go off the rails well before the train slams into that corner at high speed killing all on board. What happens to Joanna has and will sadly continue to happen to a great many women on what should be a peaceful night out with friends. But is it down to her fight or flight response that everything changes. It is here that a single thought becomes action and in doing so he life will be forever changed.
With each shift in the plot, we can feel the tension building within Joanna. How the ripples grow bigger and bigger build to a crescendo. It is through her assumption as to what will happen next that we see her getting pulled apart. And what to me holds true about said assumptions is that she makes two completely different ones but both hold true in her mind. She believes them wholeheartedly yet they both steam from the same action. Thus showing there is a great danger to be found in assuming anything.
It would be the mark of a lazy writer to simply play one side of the narrative off against the other. But I never felt this with McAllister's work, each path has its very own and distinctive set of issues for her hero. And whilst it is easier to sit in judgment of Joanna's choice to run, In both timelines, I was still left feeling for her. This one action was never meant to lead where it did. It feels much more reactionary a need to be left alone in the presence of a threat. A feeling we have all no doubt experienced in our lives. It is I suppose down to intent, how do you convey the level of fear you feel in any given moment to justify your actions. And that in and of itself is a very personal thing. Someone how has experienced traumatic events in their past will see threats much more than some who have had an idyllic life in comparison.
This is definitely one of those books that I could not put down. Once underway I was entranced by Joanna's story. This need to see how each of the timelines would play out and in turn how much her own mind broke her apart. It is a funny thing to see how much our own minds keep working on a feedback loop when it comes to traumatic events. The more we try and shed these memories and emotions the more our brains keep throwing them back in our faces. So what we are left with is whether living with the direct consequence of our action is more traumatic to us than living with the secrets of what we have done. But to see how this one plays out you will have to dive into it yourselves after all it is through the many emotions you feel reading this one that the story lifts of the page and into our minds.
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