The complex themes of memory, identity and trauma lies at the centre of SJ Watson’s third novel and he explores it expertly though the story of a sleepy town with hidden secrets and a main protagonist with a shipload of her own – if only she could remember what they were.
Alex Young, a documentary film maker struggling to make a success of her career, is presented the opportunity to go to Blackwood Bay, a village in Northern England, to produce a documentary. Alex knows it’s the project she’s been looking for to prove her skills, but she’s been to Blackwood Bay before and now has to choose between securing her future and facing her past.
Fortunately Alex can’t resist the lure of a good story. Despite bringing the town’s inhabitants under the impression that the film will depict ordinary life in a small coastal town, Alex knows that there’s a much juicier story to be told. Ten years earlier fourteen year-old Daisy Willis jumped off the cliffs near Bluff House and shortly after her best friend, Sadie Davies, disappeared. The incidents were considered to merely be the unfortunate result of teenage girls being unable to cope in a small town. However, seven years later Zoey Pearson also vanished.
Alex starts to unstitch the town’s past, much to the annoyance of the menacing locals. She’s able to do this partly though the video clips the town’s people upload under the pretence that they are contributing to the documentary. By analysing the revealing clips she finds information confirming her suspicion that not only is there connection between the three girls, but whatever caused it is still ongoing and a threat to the safety of the teenage girls in Blackwood Bay.
Neither the girls, nor the cast of local characters are willing to divulge any useful information and Alex finds it near impossible to get to the root of the mystery. The only two allies she has is Gavin who runs the local film club and Bruce, a fisherman who came to her rescue when her car broke down on the way to the town. But who can she trust?
In addition Alex has to deal with her own cloudy past, work through her unresolved trauma and work out what happened to her in Blackwood Bay. Through frequent flashbacks small pieces of her past are revealed, but it’s up to us to tack them together in a coherent order and work out how her memories fit into the greater narrative. Considering that she grapples with this herself due to traumatic memory loss almost ten years earlier, we have our work cut out for us.
SJ Watson does an excellent job of keeping us in the dark by using a cast of dubious characters, multiple red herrings and the frustration of unreliable memories. Through these elements we experience the main protagonist’s confusion first-hand and it creates a feeling of uneasiness which persists throughout. The sense of place adds to the ominous air – the isolation of Bluff house, perching near the cliffs where Daisy jumped, the impetuous sea at night and the moors on the edge of town – all make for the perfect setting for nefarious wrongdoings.
If you’re in need of some suspenseful escapism in your life, Final Cut will be right up your alley.
Final Cut is published by Double Day, a Penguin imprint and this blog tour was organised by Anne Cater of Random Things Tours. Thank you to both for inviting me to take part. Also look out for the splendid selection of reviews still coming over the next week. (see the poster below for more information)
S J Watson’s on Final Cut:
In writing Final Cut I wanted to move away slightly from the entirely domestic, urban and claustrophobic feel of Before I Go To Sleep and open the story world a little. I’m returning to my preoccupations of memory, narrative and identity, though bringing a fresh spin and new maturity to them.
The story follows a young ambitious documentary film maker whose first film was lauded and her second less so, and who is struggling with her third film. She hits on the idea of making a film about life in a small, northern village and is persuaded, against her better judgement and for reasons unknown, to film in Blackwood Bay. Once there she discovers a town shrouded in mystery and full of secrets, that threaten to engulf and ultimately destroy her. She has to dig deep to save herself, as well as the lives of others.
In researching the book, I was drawn to the idea of the way we document our lives now, on Instagram and Twitter etc., and the downsides of that, as well as the darkness that can hide in plain sight and the abuses that people can visit on their fellow humans. The sad fact is I had to tone down some of the horrific atrocities I read about, or else the book would’ve been too dark, even for me.
About SJ Watson:
S. J. Watson was born in the Midlands and now lives in London. His first novel, Before I Go To Sleep, became a phenomenal international success and has now sold over 6,000,000 copies worldwide. It won the Crime Writers’ Association Award for Best Debut Novel and the Galaxy National Book Award for Crime Thriller of the Year. The film of the book, starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Mark Strong, and directed by Rowan Joffe, was released in September 2014. His second novel, Second Life, a psychological thriller, was published to acclaim in 2015.
WEST WORDS REVIEWS 