Jane Harris – Gillespie and I

(Faber)

We first meet Harriet Baxter in 1933 Bloomsbury, as our elderly narrator embarks on her memoir. The focus from the off is on her magical encounter with ‘soulmate’ Ned Gillespie, Baxter soon becoming deeply embroiled in the lives of this talented young artist and his friends and family. For Jane Harris’ second novel, she guides us, as Baxter, between contemporary London and 1880s Glasgow in a warm, conversational style with lyrical descriptions of Scottish streets and scenery. But before long, sinister undertones are hinted at and clues are cleverly planted; all building the tension for the tragedy to come.

As events start simultaneously unravelling and falling into place, all trust and truth is questioned, and Harris excels in twisting and turning the story into something altogether more unsettling than we could ever have anticipated. It takes a writer of some skill to achieve this with the reader reduced to a mere plaything in the author’s hands, but with Gillespie and I, Jane Harris dazzles us in every possible way.