“I wonder if he would love me if he could see inside my head, the pettiness, the dirty linen of my thoughts, the terrible things that I have done.”
Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, wakes to a perfect July morning at the Paper Palace, the family home she’s visited every summer for decades. Only, the morning is tainted because the night before Elle went into the woods and slept with her childhood best friend, Jonah, while their spouses were inside the house. Alternating between flashbacks and the 24 hours following their relations, this story is a messy, imperfect, complicated examination of fulfillment, choices we make, trauma we endure and how self-preservation often results in us hiding away our most vulnerable parts.
To be honest, I’m not sure how I felt about this book. It took me a while to read, mostly because the flashback scenes were graphic and included scenes of rape, incest, and sexual assault. The content is pervasive and threaded throughout the book. The writing is atmospheric, offering an uncomfortable narrative that examines human error and vulnerability. I understand why this book is polarizing – none of the characters are particularly “likeable” as they make morally questionable decision after morally questionable decision. And then it concludes with an ambiguous ending made more frustrating by the author declaring the ending is clear.
Have you read this one? Do you think the ending is clear?
THE PAPER PALACE by Miranda Cowley Heller
Read It Like Rory 