In a magnificently complex, psychologically enthralling and intelligently disturbing debut novel, PRETTY IS, Maggie Mitchell confronts what we know but rarely admit: that every woman has another version of herself hidden away somewhere.
Her mirror-self appears in a diary, on Facebook, at work, in domestic pantomimes, or in a suitcase--packed and ready to go-- hidden under the bed. She's not quite a doppelganger, not merely an avatar and not simply a wished-for twin.
She's the Other: she's the figure who represents, manifests and embodies everything the actual girl or woman can't be; she's the shadow sister, the one who acts out and withstands. She is fierce, undaunted, and far better--as well as far more horrible-- than we can ever be.
We envy her, we long to be her, we hate her, we long for what she possesses and we live wondering what she really thinks about us.
Too little time-- and far too little space on the page-- is devoted to the strange inner lives of girls. A few writers have done young women justice in terms of our adolescence, bravely raising issues concerning both its labyrinthine and libertine aspects: Daphne Du Maurer, Shirley Jackson, Elizabeth Bowen, Antonia White, George Eliot, Muriel Spark, Fay Weldon and Margaret Atwood come to mind. Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne and even Vladimir Nabokov also did their bit.
Maggie Mitchell’s name should be added to the list of those who risk writing about the gothic nature of the life of girls. Her book is a thriller—a page-turner that deserves the name—but PRETTY IS reveals itself to be far more than a breathlessly entertaining read.
It’s a work of sly and seductive brilliance.
The book is told in the voices of two adult women: Lois Lonsdale, who writes fiction under the name Lucy Ledger, and Carly-May Smith, who acts in movies under the name Chloe Savage. The voices are as distinct—and at time as harmonious or as dissonant—as two divas sharing a stage at the opera.
And yet their lives are inextricably interwoven: taken, or as they often call it, “chosen” by a man they called “Zed” when they were twelve years old, they can’t decide as adults whether they were rescued or kidnapped all those years ago.
As Lois explains, she only accepted a ride from a strange man on a rainy day because there was already another girl in the car. As Lois climbs in, she’s told by Carly-May “'It’s best if no one sees us.’ She sounded more like an accomplice than a victim of kidnapping— it that’s what she was. If that’s what I was; kidnapped was a word that had drifted around my head a bit, but it carried little conviction…How often had I imagined ways of leaving my world behind, woven elaborate fantasies of escape, of transformation?”
A wish for escape and transformation: what child hasn’t longed for these? What girl hasn’t hoped to been seen as special, unique, deserving and cut from a different pattern than her peers? Carly-May was abeauty-pageant contestant; Lois scooped up awards at spelling bees. Both were passionate competitors, disdainful of the adult women in their lives, contemptuous of other girls (although eager for friendship) and, most significantly, desperate to be seen as remarkable creatures.
These two girls compete for the attention, approval and affection of their abductor; this is neither Ellie’s Kemper’s defiant portrayal of the “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” in Tina Fey’s Netflix series or an echo of the real-life resilient Elizabeth Smart, taken from her family when she was fourteen.
Mitchell gives us what every real thriller, mystery and psychologically compelling work promises but few deliver: a searching look into our own worst fears about what we desire and what we need. Mitchell does not succumb to what Mary McCarthy warned against: she does not allow sex to do the work of love, nor love to do the work of sex. Mitchell complicates the matter and, as we hear each woman explain her own version of the past, we wait for the next revelation.
The ending of the novel is gratifying on every level and reminds us why we fiction can offer more satisfying conclusions than life might ever dare. I’ll leave it at that, except for offering a proud disclaimer: I know the author. But after publication of PRETTY IS by Henry Holt on July 7th, 2015, so will every other reader.
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