Living in a communal building means sharing amenities such as garbage cans and recycle bins. This, of course, brings with it a number of untold points of contention and moments of dissension. It was during one of these 'bright-happy' moments when I was rearranging the order of the trash cans in an attempt to eliminate the aromatic bouquet of fresh waste that was persistently oozing through the slit in my bedroom window that I discovered someone had thrown away a brand new hard cover book.
Now if there is one thing I simply cannot resist, it is books. Of any kind. The following moment saw me waist deep flailing around in recycled trash in an attempted rescue of what is soon to be an extinct species. My new 'shiny' was none other than Mary Higgins Clark's newest best seller 'Just Take My Heart'. With naught but a small nick on the back cover the book was in perfect condition and with a few deodorizing sprays of oust to remove the lingering smell of old lasagne and stale beer I was sure that it would be good as new. Having never actually read Ms Clark, I was intrigued to see what she had to offer, especially knowing that practically every book she has written has been a best seller in the United States.
Her book begins:
"It was the persistent sense of impending doom, not the nor'easter that made Natalie flee from Cape Cod back to New Jersey in the predawn hours of Monday morning. She had expected to find sanctuary in the cosy Cape house that had once been her grandmother's and now hers, but the icy sleet beating against the windows only increased the terror she was experiencing. Then, when a power failure plunged the house into darkness, she lay awake, sure that every sound was caused by an intruder.
After fifteen years, she was certain that she had accidentally stumbled upon the knowlege of who had strangled her roommate Jamie, when they were both struggling young actresses. And he knows, that I know, she thought - I could see it in his eyes."
After reading that far I stopped. Was this some clever spoof poking fun at the nature of thrillers and the predictability of the suspense genre or was this truly as 'horrifying' as I feared? In order to allow her every benefit of the doubt, I continued to read a further two or three chapters and then I closed the book, made my way back out to the trash can, and dumped it straight back into the waste from which it had been extracted.
I feel a shame to admit that this terrifyingly numbing read had begun to compel me in the same way that an American television drama would. Its predictability and pure lack of mental stimulation was like a drug; while the fiction played its way out on the page before me, my brain slept the intoxicating sleep of the lobotomized.
So Ms Mary Higgins Clark trash you are and trash you shall remain.
A.