On the shelf, 'The Turnglass' is immediately striking, the cover illustrated with an hourglass, a house trapped and reflected in each half, detailed in gold. And when the novel is turned over to find the blurb on the back, the reader is confronted with a similar cover upside-down to the first side. This book is a tête bêche book, in which the story is printed in two halves, requiring the reader to flip the book to read the second part. This offers an intriguing layout, one book with two stories separated by orientation, the middle of the book a blank page leading to the upside-down ending of the other story. In what way are these stories connected, are they reflections of each other or linked by theme? Is there no connection but the context, two stories forced together through a hardback binding? Or are they inextricably connected, the reader unable to understand one without also reading the other? This format offers many creative possibilities with an experimental form rarely seen in mainstream contemporary writing.
Finding the blurbs on the inner fold of the dust cover, the reader finds that one side of the book is set in England in the 1880s following a young doctor named Simeon Lee, and the other side is 1930s California, starring Ken Kourian. Even in the blurb, the reader can begin to see the link between the stories, with recurring names and a mention of a tête bêche book. There are clear mystery elements in each story, with a gothic set up in the 1880s with an eerie house and secrets below the surface, and a murder mystery for Ken Kourian to solve in the 1930s.
I will begin with my praises. The book has some wonderfully original ideas. The format is the most striking, and this is carried through some elements of the story, with the two houses as reflections of each other on each side of the book. Interweaving tête bêche books into the story, and making them central to unveiling the mysteries of the stories, was also a nice touch. The themes of buried secrets and identity connect both stories, with the desire to uncover the mysteries keeping the audience reading. I also liked the details of some of the locations. The houses appear to be three storeys high but the first floor is actually the height of two floors, the ceiling extending upwards to dizzying effect. The glass-fronted room in the library of the English house is an intriguing feature, voyeuristic and confining. The glass house in California continues the theme of appearing transparent but concealing secrets. The writing tower out at sea was another interesting setting, although I was concerned about water damage to the books stored there.
I began with the story set in the 19th century. In terms of setting, the house rung a few too many bells. The young doctor from London must travel by train and coach to an estuary on a coastline shrouded in fog. The house he must reach is on an islet with a single causeway connecting it to the mainland and is subject to the tides. When the sea rolls in, the house, the only one on the desolate scrap of land, becomes completely cut off, alone in the sea mists. The young man is warned that the house has something evil about it and the locals do not like it; and are suspicious of it to the point of becoming threatening to any who visit. This description immediately brings Eel Marsh House from 'The Woman in Black' by Susan Hill to mind. Considering the number of gloomy locations in Britain, it seems an oversight to create one so similar to an incredibly well-known literary location. It detracts from the aforementioned original and interesting elements that are present in Rubin's story and location.
Starting on the 1880s side of the book, I was not convinced by the attempt at the Victorian England idiolects, and later the accents. The writing felt clunky and forced, not the natural flow for the author. I would have preferred an anachronistic but more fluent writing style that would not get in the way of the story as much. Later in the story, when arriving at the Essex coast, the attempt to transcribe the local accent also felt clumsy and was tiring to try to read. Giving the "rough" locals, the servants and the criminal types, a written-out accent was heavy handed and unnecessarily portrayed them as "other" and uneducated. Generally, it is a rule to avoid phonetic portrayals of accents for these exact reasons; it is best to avoid irritating the reader at all costs. Another writing guideline in this vein was also broken; to avoid long passages in italics or more difficult to read fonts. 'The Turnglass' had extended passages in a cursive, hand-writing-style font to distinguish a diary from the main body of text. These pages were crucial to the story but were tiring to read.
With the familiar location, the young, scientifically minded man coming from the city to the isolated house that he has been told is in some way malevolent and the locals distrust, I assumed the genre to be gothic horror. However, as the story progressed, it became more a crime mystery and a thriller. The themes and atmosphere shifted to these genres quite suddenly, wrapping up quickly with several successive reveals. The length of the story, being only half the book, may have contributed to this, but I think some of the hints and expectations could have been set a little sooner in the story. Having a pivotal character remain silent for so long held back the development of the story and the reveal of some of the underlaying mysteries a little too long for a story of such limited page count, and I think the death that needs to be solved, could have been the inciting incident to set the tone of the story and direction from the start.
Many of these issues did not emerge on the 1930s side of the book, with the the murder mystery set-up introduced sooner and the language flowing more naturally. Perhaps due to the closer third person narration style, with Ken Kourian almost as the voice of the narrator, inserting "yeah" into the text on many occasions, the writing style felt more comfortable. This familiarity with this voice also seemed reflected in the descriptions of California and the 1930s time-period to the point that I assumed the author, Gareth Rubin, was American and not British.
The direction also seemed clearer from the start, but that may have been because my expectations had been set by the first story and the blurb and I had an idea of where the story was headed. However, it soon became predictable and easily solved by the reader. Whereas the 1880s side plants clues that become apparent in a satisfying way, I guessed the conclusions of the 1930s story correctly far in advance, removing the intrigue and making the final part a bit of a slog.
My other criticism of the 1930s story is that it was linked too directly to the 1880s story, making the form of the book redundant. In the 1880s English story, there are mysterious mentions of a glass house in California and a book set in the future of a man uncovering the secrets surrounding the disappearance of his mother. The story greatly intrigues some of the characters and links to the discussions around revenge and whether it is a right of man or to be left to God. The book the story is printed in also becomes important as the reverse houses the diary of the parson that reveals his true character and pivotal plot elements. This loosely and thematically links the two stories of 'The Turnglass', and I was interested to see how the story of the 1880s would be loosely interwoven and add more depth and context to the second story.
In the 1930s story, the first half of the book exists within the world of the story exactly as can be read in 'The Turnglass'. The story contains clues to solving the mysteries and uncovering the secrets of the Tooke family, but, to me, this renders the tête bêche format pointless. The second story is not an inverse reflection of the first story but a direct continuation, so it could very well have been written consecutively in a conventional book format without removing any thematic advantages of the unusual form. While the tête bêche printing adds interest and theming possibilities, the core connection between the stories removes any of the deeper meaning of the form. I think if I had read the 1930s story first, I would have been bored by the 1880s story that had already been described and explored in the 1930s story and confused by the inclusion of another story set in the 1930s which resembles 'The Turnglass' but is unrelated to the other half of the book.
Overall, I think 'The Turnglass' is a great introduction to the tête bêche book format, revealing the possibilities of the form and bringing this format of experimental fiction to a wider audience. I had never heard of this form before, but am now fascinated by it; the possibility of linking two stories, or writing the same story from different perspectives, or exploring a theme from different angles, or even juxtaposing the writings of two different authors within the same covers, like within 'The Turnglass'. While the story itself left a lot to be desired for me, I am happy to have been introduced to this format and value reading a book in which some elements are effective and others not. Analysing texts like this can be instructive to my own practice, allowing me to see what works and learning what to avoid in my own writing. Due to the frustrations I have mentioned, I cannot in good faith recommend the book, however it is an interesting exploration of form and, if taken as a light-hearted murder mystery novel, may be fun for some readers. Just not my favourite.
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