a psychological thriller for women who refuse to be broken
- Written by Emily Grace Baulch, Researcher, Publishing Studies, University of Queensland, The University of Queensland
“Where,” Vee wonders, “in God’s name did all that anger come from? And more to the point, where the fuck has it all gone?”
Catherine Wheel is a book for women – angry women, sad women, women who refuse to be broken – who keep going despite, and changed by, the men who wage war in their lives.
Journalist Liz Evans’ debut novel is about Kate and her ex-husband’s ex (and mistress), Vee (or Valerie). Kate is still reeling from the unravelling of her and Max’s marriage. She is determined to find out why Max left her for Vee, among the myriads of women with whom he had affairs.
Review: Catherine Wheel – Liz Evans (Ultimo)
“If I could find out what Valerie had gained,” she reasons, “I would better understand my loss.” Kate has tracked down Vee in Bridgewell, and moves there to teach yoga and work in the library. She slowly integrates herself into Vee’s life, even babysitting Vee and Max’s daughter, Iona, an experience she likens to “walking on the tips of swords”.
Kate carefully curates a friendship with Vee, keeping Vee ignorant of her past. She is wound “as tight as a drum … perfectly tensioned, precisely tuned, ready to spring”. As Kate drinks from Vee’s wine glass, matching her lips to the lipstick stain exactly, you wonder how far Kate will go in her unrelenting obsession to understand the attraction Vee holds.
Catherine Wheel is a compelling, if not groundbreaking psychological thriller, with a beautiful cadence.
Women connected by men
The novel is deliberate and carefully crafted. Kate and Vee’s alternating points of view illuminate how they look at and think about each other. The comparisons highlight their insecurities: both women see the best of each other and the worst of themselves.
Kate’s story reads as a confessional, directed to Max, as she struggles to make sense of why he left her for Vee. “If I met her at a party,” Kate muses, “or in a supermarket queue, what would I notice? What would I think? What would strike me?” She continues:
I struggle with this, I really do, because what I am most struck by, continually, is her lack of definition. Is that what attracted you?
Her voice is intimate and familiar, referencing their old life together – a backstory that unfurls and deepens throughout the novel. To Kate, Max is still hers and they still share something intimate, even if he broke her and moved on. Valerie is almost an in-joke within their relationship.
But the entry of the charmingly boyish, badly dressed artist, Tom, brings something new to the narrative. In Tom, Vee finds a potential new love to prise her away from her on-again, off-again relationship with Max. Kate, seeing the opportunity to inflict pain on Vee, starts her own relationship with Tom.
Where Vee sees the chance for romance, Kate sees another Max – a womaniser, with little regard for women. But even she has little idea of the depths of Tom’s disregard for women.
The plot may sound like a lot to get your head around. But the book is really about Kate and Vee, and the damage done to them – and changes to their lives – because of men. These women are woven together, inexplicably, painfully, by the men in their lives.
Critiquing toxic masculinity
The novel stalls towards the middle, as Kate edges her way into Vee’s life. The process is naturally mundane and repetitive, revolving around love interests, jobs and motherhood. While Evans is methodological in building suspense and establishing the plot, it seems to rush into the climax and ending. I wanted a little more time to sit in the wake of the consequences.
But the impact of Catherine Wheel isn’t in the pacing – it’s in Evans’ emotional critique of toxic masculinity. Tom and Max, Max and Tom: two three-letter-named men who collect and leave a trail of so-called “hysterical” and “monstrous” women in their wake. Singularly, Max is an obsession for Kate to pursue. But together, Max and Tom represent a pattern of coercive control, gaslighting, abuse and internalised misogyny; a wheel, as it were, that needs to be broken.
The emotion of Evans’ writing feels real: the anger comes with great tiredness and the fight against the abuse the women experience is draining. The novel’s emotions resonate beyond the page; they linger. Evans’ observations often threaten to hit a little too close to home. Her portraits of the modern woman, demure and masked through her romantic experiences, left me wincing with recognition:
She’s not good with anger. They didn’t do anger in her family […] So now, she deals with upsets and injuries by remaining calm, keeping her distance, or complying to the point of self-erasure.
This book of fractured souls and tentative female trust can be confronting, even jarring. Catherine Wheel is a natural evolution of the genre of #Metoo fiction. It’s not about violence done to women’s bodies by men – or not solely about that – but about women’s minds and lives, and their self image.
Authors: Emily Grace Baulch, Researcher, Publishing Studies, University of Queensland, The University of Queensland
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