The House of Forgetting

Most of those reading this review will remember English classes in high school. Drowsed through most of the books, didn't you? But there was one you liked, one that actually deserved the hype it got. In many ways, "The House of Forgetting" is the modern version of that book, at once curiously lyrical and utterly devastating. I would like to add that this is not a "thrilling" book, as a certain 3-star review commented--but that's not the point. This isn't a thriller, it's art, in a way many writers can only dream of and many more don't even try for.

While the "psychological thriller" is not really my cup of tea, I found this poetic work to be inventive and at times provocative. Saenz, a passionate writer and reader of poetry, infuses this novel with his poetic verve. The plot, a modernized, ramped-up version of Hawthorne, is well-paced and for the most part carefully laid out. The weakness would have to be in the characterizations: the rugged independent-minded good cop, dog-kicked for his honesty, and the equally independent, honest and hardworking female public defender, who just happens to be attractive and southern. Unfortunately, we know these folks from tv. The reclusive (and of course famous) academic and his goddess kidnap victim are more realistic. For intriguing, escapist reading, this book is recommended, not for overall literary accomplishment.

I FOUND THIS BOOK BY ACCIDENT AT A BOOK SALE. I LOVED IT FROM THE FIRST PAGE. IT IS ABOUT A WOMAN WHO WAS KIDNAPPED AT AGE 7 AND LIVED HER LIFE AS A CAPTIVE IN A MAN'S HOUSE. HER VIEW OF HER WORLD IS PERCEPTIVE, POETIC AND SENSITIVE. SHE STABS HER CAPTOR, IS IMPRISONED AND THEN RELEASED. THIS BOOK GRABBED A HOLD OF ME AND WOULD NOT LET GO UNTIL I FINISHED IT. THE CHARACTERS ARE REAL AND I WAS LEAD ALONG UNTIL THE SURPRISE ENDING. I WASN'T SURE WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN AND THAT KEPT ME HOOKED.

Saenz has a remarkable imagination, and a true poet's sensitivity to the complexity of human emotion. He weaves a mesmerizing and compelling story, not least because it is unusual. It is almost gothic, with Thomas Blacker's house and garden as it's center and it's beautifully evocative descriptive passages. The atmosphere is perfect and the characterizations (for the most part)are psychologically incisive. The character of Gloria is a remarkably human and "real" character, and it is worth commending Saenz for that alone. However, I cannot help but wish Saenz had spent more time on the character of Thomas and his relationship with Gloria. I felt he could have done better on that end. He tries to pass Thomas off as a monster at the end, yet that is not how he was portrayed--when you write realistic fiction, you have to create real people and Thomas, in this world, was real. He wasn't a monster any more than Karl Marx was a monster. His ideas were overly idealistic and too simplistic, like Marx's ideas of communism. And his childlike puzzlement that his plans didn't work out as he thought they would emphasize his humanity as well as the mental illness that he labored under. Mental illness does not equal a monster--only a lost and curiously naive human being. To be a monster is to be intentionally cruel. Thomas was not intentionally cruel and didn't realize his cruelty, therefore, Thomas is not a monster.

Couldn't put down this mesmerizing story of a woman who has lived with her kidnapper since she was seven, and how she finally breaks free. Unuusal story. Wonderful writing.