Starred review from July 11, 2022
Aging artist Penny, the unreliable narrator of this exquisite novel of psychological suspense from Reid (Foe), becomes less able to manage her life after the death of her longterm romantic partner, a prolific painter whose success contrasted with Penny’s timidity in showing her own work. After a bad fall, Penny’s landlord drops her at Six Cedars, a small, isolated retirement home in the woods of a larger setting that’s left ambiguous. The owner, Shelley; the other three residents; and the lone employee seem to be waiting for Penny to complete their group—they insist that Penny chose Six Cedars for herself before her partner’s death, despite her not remembering doing so. Penny becomes disoriented in time and increasingly disturbed as she bristles against Shelley’s strange group meetings, control of daily life, and push to keep the residents “positive and productive” while preventing them from going outside. Reid teases at the secrets of Six Cedars without ever fully resolving them, amid Penny’s confused but salient perceptions, leaving readers contemplating their own mortality and primed to see the sinister behind the mundane. Despite the lack of resolution, the story feels complete as it closes with a disturbingly upbeat and peaceful scene. This deep plunge into fears about growing old and losing control is unforgettable. Agent: Samantha Haywood, Transatlantic Agency.
August 1, 2022
Once a prolific surrealist painter, Penny is an aging widow contending with the effects of time. After one too many memory slips and imagined voices, and a fall that leaves her bloodied, Penny is placed, per a prearranged plan, at Six Cedars, a progressive, cutting-edge assisted-living facility in the countryside. At first, Six Cedars seems like an idyllic place for Penny to live out her last years. But when she spends more time with the operators of the facility, Shelly and Jack, she begins to lose her grip on what is reality and what is a dream. Days seem to turn into years at this special home in the country. After learning that Shelly is a "retired" biologist obsessed with the idea of symbiotic fusion, Penny suspects that Shelly's intentions aren't pure. Seasoned novelist Reid (Foe, 2018) combines magnetic character development with clipped, eerie prose in this masterfully crafted psychological thriller that will keep the reader guessing until the very last word on the final page.
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September 1, 2022
An assisted living facility isn't what it seems. Penny, the narrator of the latest novel from Canadian author Reid, isn't doing so well. She's lived alone in her apartment ever since the death of Mike, her partner--like her, an artist--and feels "alone. Very old and very much alone." Things get worse when she suffers a fall at home and finds out arrangements have been made for her to live in a small assisted living community; she resists the move even after she meets the other residents of the facility: "I don't want to be on an adventure. Not at all. I want to be home. I want to be having a nap. These people all know each other, are all used to living side by side, but they don't know me. I don't know them. They're all strangers." It doesn't take long for things to get creepy--she starts to get creeped out by Shelley, the community's director, whose speech "sounds almost scripted and rehearsed" and who says things like "We don't like to have secrets here." After an assortment of odd goings-on, Penny realizes, "This is not the comfortable, cozy place I thought it was. I was wrong about that, fooled." This is an undoubtedly creepy book, but it's anything but subtle; Reid doesn't so much drop hints as scream them. The characters, save Penny, function more as props, given ominous dialogue to hammer home the point that things aren't quite right in the facility--the novel has the tone of a horror movie directed by someone desperately afraid the audience is going to miss the point. In his previous books, Reid has proved himself capable of crafting taut, original thrillers. This is not one of them. Shoots for scary, lands on silly.
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