Sadie Jones - The Snakes

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Outstandingly good

I thought The Snakes was excellent.

Bea and her husband Dan, who are scraping by financially as she works as a psychotherapist and he as a not-very-successful estate agent, decide to take a break and drive their old car to the continent, stopping briefly to see Bea’s brother Alex at the hotel which he runs. It turns out that Bea has refused to accept money from her father, who is rich enough to own a private jet, and that her brother’s hotel is a gift from the father but not really operating, as Alex isn’t wholly mentally stable. There is a death and there are significant developments in all the relationships, plus a deepening and increasingly sinister mystery.

This is really a book about money and its effect. It sounds a little dry and worthy but Sadie Jones writes unflashily but brilliantly and I was very caught up in it. She captures the power and expectations of the very rich, Bea’s rebellion and social conscience and the money’s seductive power over Dan, who was the son of a struggling single mother. There are other layers here too, not least about class and race, all subtly but forensically analysed.

The characters and relationships are very well done and the dialogue is excellent. Jones understands how to show character through speech and action without belabouring us with the points she is making, which makes them all the more powerful. Just as a small example, I thought this was a brilliant description of how it is after a stunning tragedy:

'They had seen chaos but there was no matching response, only the ordinary, and the flimsy boundaries of time. At eight o’clock, eat. At ten o’clock, go to bed. In the landscape of catastrophe there was the brushing of teeth and toilet paper.'

I found The Snakes very readable, utterly engrossing, thoughtful, intelligent and ultimately courageous in its eschewing of easy resolution and convention. I would hope to see it as a contender for major awards this year and I can recommend it very warmly.

(My thanks to Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley.)