HarperCollins, 2015.
Five Stars
In 1960s Denver, Kitty Miller lives alone, running a struggling bookshop with her best friend, Frieda, and tutoring her young neighbour in her spare time. Her life is solitary, but satisfying. Then she begins to dream of another world, where she goes by the more mature “Katharyn”, which suits her role as wife and mother. The dreams seem innocent at first, an enjoyable escape into another life, one that could have been hers if she hadn’t been stood up on a first date eight years previous. It is only when the dreams become more real than her daily life that Kitty begins to question everything.
The first chapter of this novel actually begins in the dream world, which makes our grasp on her reality all the more uncertain. While reading, I was constantly aware of the significance of the title: Kitty defines herself as a “bookseller”, and the strength of her identity is what draws her back to reality, to her bookshop and her “sister” Frieda. However, she did not even realize that Frieda and the shop were missing from her dream world until halfway through the book (page 158), which casts doubt on their importance in her life.
At first it seemed that Kitty’s dreams began too suddenly, which felt like bad writing until I realized the trigger that set off her alternate reality was integral to the plot. When Kitty is faced with this trigger, she begins to lose time in the real world, too, and the psychological effects of her dreams become obvious to her and to us. Ultimately this novel is a beautifully written and entertaining experiment in cognitive stress, which made me so much happier than if it had turned out to be pure fantasy.
Because the story is more anchored in reality than it originally seems, some reviews have commented that both Kitty and Katharyn’s lives are boring – but I think that’s the point. All lives have ups and downs; no matter how perfect and predictable they seem, our minds will occasionally seek an escape into dreams. As Kitty realizes, “[t]he imagination, it turns out, is a remarkably clever and hardworking creature” (p. 331).
In my opinion, the ending of The Bookseller, and especially Kitty/Katharyn’s final words, throws doubt on everything that we think is true: “I am as sure of it as I am of everything in the [other] world” (p. 335). There are no conclusive answers and no trustworthy perspective on which woman’s life is real. Either one could be an escape into the other’s dream, and that’s what made this book so satisfying. Not to mention the excellent period details, including authentic prejudice against working mothers, fun pop culture references, and mid-century design so real I felt like I was in the room with Kitty. A great read by an outstanding new author.
I received this book from HarperCollins and Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review.
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