{Review by STELLA}

A few years ago I read  Vendela Vida’s The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty. It’s one of those books that stays with you, and at the time it had me thinking, laughing out loud and completely enthralled for a few days. Set in Morocco, the story opens with our protagonist on a plane avoiding someone – she doesn’t want to be noticed. We are given a glimpse of a life going awry. We know she is preparing to divorce, that she has a secret – a situation that upsets her that she can’t face. On arriving at her hotel her bag is stolen and suddenly she has no credit cards, no passport, and no ID. The police look into it and claim her bag has been recovered. They give her the black backpack – actually they insist she takes it! And then things start getting crazy. She has credit cards, a passport, but she’s taken on someone else’s identity. As she flips through a series of events in Casablanca, she moves through a variety of identities changing her name, her appearance and telling tales. Paranoia, a heightened sense of being found out, and a desire to keep running dictate her options. The reader is taken into her confidence, walking alongside her, sometimes amused, sometimes shocked at her risky and often audacious behaviour. But we can’t help but feel that we are part of this, kind of egging her on to take control, to be autonomous from her past life. This week, I read an earlier work from Vida, The Lovers. This time we are in Turkey, at a small rundown tourist village. Yvonne, recently widowed, goes back to this coastal area in an attempt to recall happier times. From the moment we enter Yvonne’s world we get a sense of foreboding, that something is slightly off-kilter. Arriving at Istanbul, the driver who is to meet her to take her to the holiday house isn’t there. Yvonne at once feels foolishly naive, but after a phone call she finds out she’s just been waiting on the ‘wrong’ side of the terminal. On meeting  Ali, the owner of the holiday house, she begins to wonder if she has made a mistake in coming to Turkey. The village isn’t what it used to be and she can’t seem to find a connection to the happy memories of the past. The sudden death of her husband haunts her and her concerns about her adult children weigh her down. Determined to make the most of her holiday, she heads for the neighbouring village, where she strikes up a friendship with  Ahmet, a boy she meets on the beach. Back at the holiday house, she is surprised to encounter Ali’s estranged wife, Ozmet, visiting. Ozmet and Yvonne, an unlikely match, confide in each other and Yvonne finds herself revealing her fears and sadness. As things seem to be improving for Yvonne, suddenly we are back with that sense of foreboding, a storm at sea, hostile villagers, a message from her addict daughter. These little unsettling triggers are setting the scene for an incident that will force Yvonne to confront herself and her sense of guilt. Vendela Vida is adept at placing the tragic and the comedic together with a subtly which is beguiling.