It always goes back to the mother. For us all. Apparently. That’s the first thing you learn if you have psychotherapy. The second is that therapists are often even more nuts than their patients. Joanna Briscoe has taken these likely truths as the premise for her new novel, a domestic therapy noir drama about how quickly a marriage can unravel in the right circumstances.
Beth is a successful artist, married to photographer Sol. They have a daughter, Fern, just turning 13, who has suddenly gone moody and secretive. Beth was abandoned by her own mother at the same age as Fern is now, and is having increasingly bad anxiety attacks.
Pressured by Sol, she agrees to have therapy and gets an NHS referral to see Dr Tamara Bywater, a consultant chartered clinical psychologist, in other words, not just any old shrink.
At first Beth is resistant to this “neat, faintly dull-looking” woman, but as the sessions continue, they turn into “the hour of salvation” and Beth becomes infatuated. Could, she wonders, the feeling be mutual?
There’s often a moment in a novel when the story turns from being vaguely credible to downright preposterous, and unfortunately that moment comes early on, when Dr Bywater accidentally knocks the mouse on her desk and the monitor flashes on to reveal the screensaver, a cropped monochrome portrait of the good doctor, who, Beth observes, looks “glazed, post-orgasmic, the intimacy of her expression absolute”.
One thing leads to another and soon Beth and her therapist are meeting up for illicit drinks and dinners, Dr B now dressing in slinky outfits, with high heels, painted lips and a line in seductive chat that puts pick-up artists to shame. Beth starts to feel increasingly ostracised at home both by hubby Sol, and Fern, who says things like “Don’t flip your shit” and “Holy crap.” Is that really how 13-year-olds speak these days? And I’ll eat my hat if the scene in which Beth and Dr B eventually get down and almost dirty isn’t nominated for the Bad Sex Award. Domestic noir has a tendency to be silly, but this is absolutely nuts.
The Seduction by Joanna Briscoe (Bloomsbury, £16.99), buy it here.
