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Inside The Cover
Book Reviews
Brilliant
and disturbing, Cathy Coote’s Innocents is a shocking narrative a la Lolita.
Narrated by a never-identified sixteen year-old, the book takes the form
of a long letter to her lover. She
has always considered herself an outsider among her peers. Secret sketchbooks filled with masochistic drawings of her
classmates add to her feelings of isolation.
Finding her attentive English teacher accompanying her in the lesser
social strata after she assists him with a wounded animal following a motor
vehicle accident, it is to his house that she runs after her sketchbooks are
discovered at home. The
teacher, also nameless throughout the book, welcomes her with a mixture of fear
and excitement. Fully conscious of
his desire and the inappropriateness of acting on it, he is unfortunately no
match for the manipulative and calculating sixteen year-old.
Months
pass, their relationship progresses, and she uses every look, every word, every
touch to her advantage. Physically
unmoved yet emotionally addicted to her power, she snoops through his papers and
journals, she monitors his every action, using every bit of information culled
to further draw him into her web. Forced
to repeatedly up the ante to maintain her psychological high, she finally pushes
him to the brink of madness and desire. Innocents
chronicles a young woman’s exercise in power.
Powerless in her family and social circle, she is intrigued at her
newfound dominance over this man, eighteen years her senior – a “grownup.”
Coote creates a palpable tension as the young woman becomes intoxicated
by control, and seeks to reinforce and expand her command of the relationship.
By clearly spelling out what the narrator is thinking every step of the
way, Innocents’ denouement is all the more shocking when she’s forced
to face the consequences of her actions. Free
of all extraneous material, Innocents is a tightly written novel in which
the reader is drawn into an almost claustrophobic world in which only this young
woman and her teacher exist. Left
nameless, the character of the narrator and the teacher are developed only
though her letter and his actions, which are only observed from her point of
view. Disturbing yet ultimately satisfying, Innocents is not a casual read. The murky degrees of innocence and the idea of being “innocent” are sharply tested. Deeply affecting, the young woman Cathy Coote has created dominates the reader as well as the teacher, and leaves a lasting impression long after the final page has been read. Amy Brozio-Andrews is a freelance writer and book reviewer. She brings more than five years' experience as a readers' advisory librarian to her work, which is regularly published by Library Journal, The Imperfect Parent, and Absolute Write. Her reviews have also been published by The Absinthe Literary Review, ForeWord Magazine, January Magazine, and Melt Magazine. Amy is also the managing editor and an international markets columnist for Absolute Write. Visit her online at http://www.amyba.com. |
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Innocents
