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"I died twice.
The first time, I wanted to die. I thought death as the place where the pain would stop, where the fear would finally cease.
The second time, I didn't want to die. In spite of the pain and in spite of the fear, I had at last decided that I was where I needed to be. Messy, scary, tiring, lovely, hurting life, with all its failures its sadness, with all its sudden and unlooked for bits of joy that make you close your eyes and think..."
"I didn't want to be dead, but someone else wanted me to be. They tried very hard to make me die. I am a person who people seem to either love or hate. Sometimes it's been hard to tell the difference between the two."
Holly Krauss is the main character in Nicci French's most recent novel, CATCH ME WHEN I FALL. This opening soliloquy is chilling and immediately alerts the reader not to take things at face value. From here the story unfolds with riveting speed, but not before some questions arise: Who is this woman? Why is she the alleged target of an anonymous murderer? What could she have done to deserve to die at the hands of a killer? Or, as events collide with each other and Holly becomes a fully limned character, one has to ask: "Is this woman paranoid? She is often reckless and painfully self-destructive, but should that mark her as a target for a killer? Does she really believe her behavior doesn't attract attention? Is she imagining the stalker, the thug who (she claims) came to her home? Are merciless gangsters really on her trail?"
Holly is a young married woman who is in business with her best friend Meg. They run a consulting company that offers businesses a "shake up" by taking them away for incentive, inventive and rejuvenating weekends. Holly, the "people person," does most of the solicitations, sells the concepts and runs the presentations. Meg handles all of the other aspects of their enterprise. Holly is a dynamic, beautiful and smart individual who is totally absorbed in her work and responsibilities. She needs little if any sleep and rarely eats an entire meal.
Her husband Charlie is a work-at-home graphic artist who seems to mark time and lose clients on a regular basis. He mostly forgets to get paid since he doesn't open his mail or send out bills for his work. Overall he is a selfish loser who lives in his own fantasy world. The couple married impulsively and their one-year anniversary is rapidly approaching. Things are not perfect by a long shot, but soon they will become sinister and shocking.
One night after work, Meg invites Holly to join her and several men for a drink. The guys appear to be friends and the women feel "safe as houses" with them. But our heroine gets very drunk and is suddenly caught up in a parallel world and finds parts of herself she never knew existed. The "wild side" of her breaks out with abandon and she begins a journey that demeans her, humiliates her, and puts her in danger. On another occasion a one-night stand turns into a "Mr. Goodbar" nightmare.
The trouble gets out of hand when she receives a call from one of the men from the drinking party: "I'm going to a poker game at a friend's house. And I thought it might be fun if you came as well. You don't have to play, though. You can watch us and drink whiskey and blow smoke rings." Yes she will go...against her better judgment. As she gets herself ready she says, "I wanted to look like a femme fatale in a noir film of the forties, standing in a stairwell and slabbed shadows falling across my face. I wanted to wear stiletto heels and a tight skirt and shrug nonchalantly at pain and danger." Someone should have reminded her to be careful what you wish for.
Of course Holly is so far into her own stratosphere that she never thinks about what could happen to her with these six men. "I feel exhilaration of escaping into another world, where different things are done." When one of the players abandons his seat, she timidly sits down and soon is part of the game. "I'm playing and then I'm not playing. Now I'm sitting on a leather sofa...drinking another drink and I have a feeling that there are things about this that are not funny." She is stranded with no money and no idea of how she will get home. "Money. There's something...somebody said after a few hands didn't go so well. Somebody said a figure: nine thousand pounds. That's what I owe. That can't be right. I was just playing" for fun. She now is in danger from professional gamblers and thugs. Then, the straw that "breaks" her is when she fires one of the workers in the office; after that she completely loses her center. She no longer knows herself, and those who love her don't recognize their fair-haired girl.
Holly is running on empty and no longer is able to grasp what is happening to her. She is completely vulnerable and finally has the breakdown she cannot avoid. Unfortunately she collapses on the street and is perceived as a drunk. People stare at her, but it takes some time before someone gets her to the hospital. Finally she is able to rest, to reflect, to choose between life and death.
Nikki French's novels are shaded in hues of gray, not black-and-white issues or events. She creates an ambiance that immediately draws readers into the lives of her characters yet manages to withhold enough information to keep her audience apace with the plot and still keep secrets hidden. Her stories are read well because they are written in smart, evocative prose, which adds to the creepy sense that every action has an extraordinarily profane reaction.
While French's milieu is not "horror," her plots evoke terror in readers because they are so believable. As a matter of fact she raises universal questions like: Is perception reality? Can anyone truly know another individual? How does childhood trauma inform the adult? And in CATCH ME WHEN I FALL she specifically wrestles with the disintegration of a mind/personality/persona/person, as in sometimes it's "wise to be paranoid" because "they" are out there and want to get you.
This is a courageous book that shines a light on topics most people prefer not to confront. Nikki French is the pseudonym of London journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, and together they have produced a body of work worthy of great praise.
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
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