The Drowned Siren

To work in a novel, you need to be the right amount of crazy. Too little and you just come across as a little odd and moany, too much and your book has just become a horror novel. In Callisto Lodwick’s The Drowned Siren, Eleanor is a student in Scotland who is introverted and clingy, but not really crazy enough to be anything other than navel-gazing youngster in their early 20s. However, this is a split time narrative, and there may be more to Eleanor than it first seems.

A young woman cries on the steps leading into a hotel. She is distraught with the events that have just happened. She is surrounded by photographers snapping this vulnerable moment in her life. Has Eleanor even noticed that they are taking pictures of her, or has she engineered it this way? Drowned tells a three-year university story about obsession, revenge and sociopaths.

I have to say that I felt that the character of Eleanor was a cold fish at the start of this book. She represents some of the traits I am not enamoured with in coming-of-age stories – obsessed with her own feelings, everything being about her. This obsession starts off as self-indulgent and annoying, but the secret to Drowned is that this obsession goes further and in strange directions. Eleanor’s drive to be near the American student Cheyenne drives her to ambitious things; to write a screenplay, to move to America, to plot cold revenge.

Drowned is at its best when Eleanor is unhinged. Later in the story she has a great balance between cold plotting and neurotic obsessions. By pushing Eleanor off the deep end, Lodwick makes the book work. If she was only mildly miffed, Eleanor’s actions would make no sense, but because she is tortured by demons, they make sense. I love the cold indifference she cultivates in her relationships as an end to a means. She has little affection for her boyfriend, but he is a useful tool to have.

The split time narrative enhances the book but does make the opening act harder to swallow as Eleanor comes across as annoying. We reveal more about what is happening as events lead up to the tragic party from three years earlier to present day. With this narrative style Lodwick is able to hide some plot twists by revealing them later in the book.

By the end of the story Eleanor had done a complete 180 for me. A character I did not enjoy at all, to an anti-hero I can indulge in reading about. This is not a nice person, but not all books need to be about nice people, sometimes it is fun to read about a wrong’un. If you like crime noir, Drowned is an entertaining and twisty tale.