The Hidden Candida Baker
Knopf 2000
Hmm. Some readers will give up on this after the first few pages, because Baker’s narrator Caroline is very self-consciously writing a book (could it be the very book we are reading – yes it could), and wrapping in thoughts on memory, photography, identity, history. Every chapter starts with an epigram/quote from either luminaries like Susan Sontag or the narrator’s own lecture notes. And, it all can seem like an antipodean Rebecca/Jane Eyre (young woman along way from home. Check. Brooding man with a past. Check. Past involves dead wife. Check.)
But readers should persist, I reckon. This is no life-changing masterpiece, but Baker achieves what (I think) she sets out to do. Is it wrapped up too neatly? The wife thinks so, but I was happy enough with it.
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